Lame duck

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Some say that a good joke never won an enemy but often lost a friend. Maybe. But I observed that some tyrants, when they are clever and strong, will reward audacious wit as eagerly as they despise the flattery they are used to.

Hoca was strolling through the market of Konya. His eyes and his nostrils were full with the colourful multitude of people and the mouth-watering treasuries of the stalls. The selling and the buying went on in noise and excitement. However, a heavy shadow hung over the busy crowd. People were too worried to open their purses, with Tamerlane's soldiers roaming the country.

"What will befall us?" asked a man with a half undone turban who was selling a heap of ripe melons.

"Tamerlane is looting everything, even the graveyards," added a cobbler waving a pair of worn leader shoes.

"He burns towns to the ground and builds minarets of severed heads," added a voice from behind a Persian carpet.

A party of strangers, with faces veiled in dark cloaks came closer and listened to this.

"Have trust, my friends," stepped in Nasr Eddin, "that lame duck with his bloody rattling scimitar will rot before he reaches this sunny place. Allah's whip makes no noise."

One of the strangers, tall and dark, stepped forward:

"You who speak of Allah's whip, do you know who I am?"

The Mullah did not know.

"It happens that I am Emir Timur, the lame sabre-rattling duck that you desire to see blasted!"

"And you," replied Nasr Eddin, looking straight into the man's eyes, unaffectedly, "do you know who I am?"

"No," said Timur.

"Allah be praised!" exclaimed Hoca, disappearing in the crowd without delay.

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