to sleep. Thereupon that dreadful holy man awoke and struck me on the head with the frazzled bamboo. Yet somehow I escaped death—predestination, you see. As the old rhyme puts it:
What's duly his, a man receives;
This law not even God can break;
My heart is not surprised, nor grieves;
For what is mine, no strangers take.
"How was that?" asked the crow and the turtle. And Gold told the story of
MISTER DULY
In a certain city lived a merchant named Ocean. His son picked up a book at a sale for a hundred rupees. In this book was the line:
What's duly his, a man receives.
Now Ocean saw it and asked his son: "My boy, what did you give for this book?" "A hundred rupees," said the son. "Simpleton!" said Ocean, "if you pay a hundred rupees for a book with one line of poetry written in it, how do you calculate to make money? From this day you are not at home in my house." After this wigging, he showed him the door.
This melancholy rebuff drove the young man to another country far away, where he came to a city and stopped there. After some days a native asked him: "Whence are you, sir? What might your name be?" And he replied:
"What's duly his, a man receives."
