"[2]
Not unlike some of our "Joe Millers" is the following: A citizen of
Cumae, on an ass, passed by an orchard, and seeing a branch of a fig-tree
loaded with delicious fruit, he laid hold of it, but the ass went on,
leaving him suspended. Just then the gardener came up, and asked him
what he did there. The man replied, "I fell off the ass."--An analogue
to this drollery is found in an Indian story-book, entitled _Katha
Manjari_: One day a thief climbed up a cocoa-nut tree in a garden to
steal the fruit. The gardener heard the noise, and while he was running
from his house, giving the alarm, the thief hastily descended from the
tree. "Why were you up that tree?" asked the gardener. The thief
replied, "My brother, I went up to gather grass for my calf." "Ha! ha!
is there grass, then, on a cocoa-nut tree?" said the gardener. "No,"
quoth the thief; "but I did not know; therefore I came down again."--And
we have a variant of this in the Turkish jest of the fellow who went
into a garden and pulled up carrots, turnips, and other kinds of
vegetables, some of which he put into a sack, and some into his bosom.
The gardener, coming suddenly on the spot, laid hold of him, and said,
"What are you seeking here?" The simpleton replied, "For some days past
a great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither." "But who
pulled up these vegetables?" "As the wind blew very violently, it cast
me here and there; and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving
myself remained in my hands.
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