The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his
seeming profanity, and striking him, strictly charged him to cry, "A he
and a she-dog going to be hanged!" On he went, accordingly, repeating
this new cry, till he met a man and a woman going to be married. When
the bridegroom heard what the booby said, he gave him many a good thump,
and bade him say, "I wish you much joy!" This he was crying at the top
of his voice when he came to a pit into which two labourers had fallen,
and one of them, enraged at what he thought his mockery of their
misfortune, exerted all his strength and scrambled out, then beat the
poor simpleton, and told him to say, "The one is out; I wish the other
was!" Glad to be set free, the booby went on shouting these words till
he met with a one-eyed man, who, like the others, taking what he was
crying for a personal insult, gave him another drubbing, and then bade
him cry, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" So
he adopted this new cry, and continued his adventurous journey till he
came to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people, hearing him
bawling, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" at
once concluded that he had set the house a-blazing; so they put him in
prison, and the end was, the judge put on the black cap and condemned
him to be hanged![5]
* * * * *
When the noodle is persuaded, as in the following case of a Sinhalese
wittol, by a gang of thieves to join them in a plundering expedition,
they have little reason to be pleased with him, for he does not make a
good "cat's-paw.
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