Not Found

The ambassador of Nippon presented a beautiful cat to the Emperor of China. The emperor became fond of the animal and took it with him whereever he went. People kept asking for the cat’s name and were surprised when told that it had none.

Eventually the emperor decied that the cat shoud have a name. He called his ministers, the seven wisest men in the empire, and commanded them to find a suitable name for his pet in seven days.

At the end of this period they were summoned to the palace again , and asked for their suggestions. The youngest of the group thought he had found the perfect name.” TIGER !” he announced proudly.

” Good name”, said the emperor, ” The tiger is a noble and powerful beast.”

” Noble perhaps,” said the second minister,” but it is not as powerful as the dragon. Can a tiger soar into the sky? No, but a dragon can! I think DRAGON would be more suitable name for the cat.

” Clouds can go higher than dragons,” observed the third minister. ” A cloud is more powerful than a dragon, Let’s call it CLOUD.

” Let’s not be hasty,” advised the fourth wise man. ” Clouds may fly high but they are pushed around by the winds. Winds are more powerful than clouds. WIND would be the most appropriate name for a great emperor’s pet.”

” A brick wall can stop a wind, however powerful,” explained another minister, so name the cat BRICKWALL.

“Oh , I see, ” said the emperor, ” Well, Brick Wall is not a bad name. But isn’t it some what long?”

“RAT”, ” Yes your majesty, a rat can eat through a brick wall, so its more powerful.said another minister

” I get your point,” interrupted the emperor, ” but can you call a cat , RAT?”

“Indeed you can’t” piped the seventh wise man. ” A cat is more powerful than the rat”

So the royal pet remained nameless in a way because from then on it was simply called CAT

There lived a man in the state of Qi who loved gold above every thing else. Nothing else could excite him as much as the sight of gold.

One day while passing a jeweller’s shop he saw a man handling a bar of gold. He rushed in, grabbed the gold and ran.

But he was soon caught.

” Why did you steal the gold in front of so many people?” asked the judge.

” Your worship,” said the man ” When I saw the gold I became blind to everything else. I did not see the people around.”

In the days when whites ruled South Africa and apartheid was the law of the land, two middle-aged blacks met in a ‘whites only’ section of Johannesburg. One of them had a permit to work in the area, the other did not, which meant he could be put behind bars for trespassing into an exclusive zone.

Suddenly they saw a policeman coming towards them and froze.

” Run !” whispered the man with the permit to his friend. ” I’ll follow .”

They started running and the policeman shouting ” Stop, stop,” began chasing them. finally he caught the second man.

” Did you think you could outrun me !” he snarled. ” Show me your permit !”

The man, playing for time, began fumbling in his pocket and finally produced his permit.

The policeman was tken aback. He realised that he had been tricked. The man without the permit was now too far away to be caught.

“when you had a permit why did you run!” he bawled.

” Doctor’s orders, ” said the man. ” He has asked me to run a mile every evening.”

” Oh, yes?” sneered the policeman. ” Then why was your friend running?”

” His doctor too has ordered him to run,” said the man.

The policeman became red with anger.

” You think you’re very smart, don’t you ? he snarled. ” But tell me, if you were only running for your health why didn’t you stop when you saw me running after you? And don’t tell me you didn’t see me chasing you….I know you did!”

” Of course I knew you were running after me, ” said the man.

” Then why didn’t you stop ? asked the policeman, triumphantly.

” It was stupid of me,” said the man,” “but I thought you too had been ordered to run by your doctor.”

One day a king stepped out of the gates of his palace and found a man standing there. The man had a pump chicken in his hands. On seeing the king he bowed respectfully and said: Your highness, I gambled in your name and won this chicken, It belongs to you. Please accept it.”

“Give it to my oultry keeper,” said the king.

A few days later the king saw the man standing outside the gates again. This time he had a goat with him. ” I won this goat in your name,” he said after saluting the ruler. ” It belongs to you.”

The king was pleased.

” Give it to my goatkeeper,” he said.

Some weeks later the man was at the palace gates once again.

This time he had two men with him.

” I lost 500 gold coins to each of these men while playing in your name, O highness,” said the man. ” I have no money to pay them>”

The king realised he had made a mistake in accepting the man’s gifts on the previous occasions. Now he could not refuse to help him. He paid off the two men and warned the gambler never to play in his name again.

A man, reading a book by candle-light, came across a sentence which stated that men with long beards were fools.

This distressed the man because he had a long beard himself. He had always thought the beard made him look scholarly and dignified, but now he began to wonder if perhaps he had not been labouring under a delusion.

He decided to do away with the beard there and then and gathering it up in his hands, held the tip to the candle flame. It caught fire and burnt faster than he had expected. In a moment the beard was all gone. Then a spark leapt up into the hair on his head and before he knew what was happening, the hair on his head was reduced to ash. His cry of alarm brought his neighbours running. they were shocked to see his scorched face and the smoke curling up from his head.

” What happened?” they asked, dowsing him with water.

” Whatever was to have happened, has happened,” said the man, sadly. ” I read that men with long beards were fools and I behaved like one.”

A man was expecting a visit from an acquaintance. He gave two ripe mangoes to his servant and asked him to slice them and serve the fruit when the man came.

The servant gave in to temptation and ate a slice. It was so sweet he could not resist eating another one. Then the madness of gluttony seized him and he devoured all the remaining pieces.

Suddenly he saw the man his master was expecting coming towards the house. He thought fast. He grabbed a rusty knife and rushing to his master told him he couldn’t cut the mangoes as the knife was blunt.

” I’ll sharpen it,” said the master and going to a stone in the garden began to rub the cutting edge of the knife against it.

Leaving him to the task the servant ran out to meet the man who was coming.

“Beware! Beware!” he said when he reached him. ” Don’t come to our house. My master has gone mad. He’s planning to cut both your ears.”

” Cut my ears !” exclaimed the man, turning pale. ” Why?!”

” There he is sharpening the knife.” said the servant. The man saw his host did indeed have a knife in his hands and was sharpening it with what looked to him like a maniacal fury. He did not wait to find out why his host wanted his ears. He turned around and started walking as fast as he could.

The servant rushed back to his master and told him that the man he had invited was running away with the mangoes.

” What !” said the master. ” The greedy fellow! Has he taken both the mangoes?!”

” Yes,” said the servant.

The man ran after the acquaintance shouting:

” Give me one! Give me one at least !”

The other man thought he was asking for one of his ears and ran for his life!

An old man who lived in a small side street in the city of Mumbai had to put up with the nuisance of having boys play cricket outside his house,at night.

One evening when the boys wee particularly noisy he went out to talk to them.

He explained that he was a pensioner who was happiest when he could see or hear boys playing his favourite game, cricket. He said he would give them 25 rupees each week to play in the stree at night.

The boys were thrilled.

They were being paid to do something they enjoyed !

At the end of the first week they knocked at the old man’s house and asked to be paid. He did so.

The second week when they asked for payment he said he had run out of money and sent them away with only 15 rupees.

The third week the man said he had not yet received his pension and gave them only 10 rupees.

The boys were very disappointed but there was not much they could do about it.

The fourth week the man said he could not afford to pay them 25 rupees as he had promised, but would give them 5 rupees each week without fail.

This was too much for the boys.

” You expect us to play seven days a week for a measly 5 rupees !” they yelled. ” Go to blazes.”

They stormed away and never played on the street again.

We’ve all heard of milkmen adding water to milk. Sam was one such man. His customers knew but were helpless. There was no other milkman in the locality.

One day as Sam was about to start on his rounds in the morning, there was a flash of light and a godly being stood before him.

Sam cowered in fright.

” Why do you add water to milk, Sam?” asked the god.

” I….I ” stammered Sam.

” Speak up !” said the god.

” I-I do it to increase the quantity of milk so that I can make more money. Lord,” said Sam.

The god waved his hand and a can of milk identical to the one Sam was carrying appeared before him.

” Behold!” said the deity, ” I have given you another can of milk. You now have double the quantity of milk you got from your cows, this morning.”

Sam thanked the god profusely and picking up the can, started walking. He took a few steps and stopped.

” Yes! You want another can of milk?” asked the god, kindly.

” No…No ! ” protested Sam. ” I’m not that greedy….just give me another can of water.

An elderly man went to a doctor with multiple complaints.

” I see spots before my eyes,” he said.

” It’s due to old age,” said the doctor.

” No food agrees with me,” said the man.

” That too is due to old age,” said the doctor. ” The digestive system becomes weaker as we grow older.”

” My back is giving trouble,” persisted the man. ” Sometimes the pain becomes unbearable.”

” Old age,” said the doctor.

This was too much for the man.

” Why do you go on saying ‘Old age , Old age’ he screamed. ” If you cannot cure me, say so, I’ll go else where.”

” See how easily you lost your temper,” said the doctor. ” That is another characteristic of old age.”

There were two brothers who were3 always up to some mischief. If somebody had been locked up in his house or if somebody’s dog had been painted green, one always knew who the culprits were – the brothers.

One day the boy’s mother asked a priest to talk to her sons and put the fear of God in them so that they would mend their ways. the priest asked her to send her sons to him one at a time.

When the younger boy, a lad of thirteen, came, he made him sit and asked him:

” Where is God”?

The boy did not answer.

The priest asked again, in a louder voice: ” Where is God?”

The boy remained silent. but when the priest asked the same question a third time, the boy jumped up and ran away.

He went straight to his brother.

” We are in big trouble!” he gasped.

” What’s wrong?” asked the older boy, warily, wondering which of their sins had caught up with them.

” God is missing,” said the youngster,” and they think wse have something to do with it !”