of hair on his own head to the beard of the latter. Then he jumped on the smith's back. The latter, taken by surprise, called on his gods, wondering if he were in the clutches of a ghost or hobgoblin. His aggressor, with sides bursting with laughter, got down, and introduced himself as his best friend. But soft words were useless. The smith in a rage asked if the cowrie, the usual fee for admission into the house, had been brought, and being answered in the negative, clutched his antagonist by the throat, and was on the point of throttling him, when one of the hairs of the latter, still tied to the beard of the former, was torn. The wood-cutter's son threw himself on this account into a frenzy, and demanded of the smith the restoration of the hair, threatening him, in case of refusal, with a legal process. The smith, agitated with great terror, pleaded for mercy, which was granted on his consenting to give up the axe and the sickle when finished. A lasting friendship was then contracted between the parties, and the boy left the place. He came back to the young frog, and was asked by it to cut with his axe a young tamarind tree in the hollow of which its mate was shut up. He complied with the request; but the frog inside, having lost, through long want of exercise, the use of its legs, could not leave the hollow. Master "One-finger-and-a-half," with admirable presence of mind, put his tuft of hair into the hole and drew the frog out. Rung Soondar out of gratitude presented him with the one cowrie it possessed, which it said would suffice to liberate his father; and its mate gave him a few drops of its spittle, saying that with them he could heal the blindness of the daughter of the king whose slave his father was, and so gain her for his wife. He accordingly left the frogs, and journeyed towards the country where his father was. The cowrie the frog had given him multiplied on the way into as many cowries as would amount to a round sum of money, and he went to the king and insolently demanded of him the liberty of his father. The king, counting the cowries and satisfied with their value, promised to meet the demand, but not omitting to give the
