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The change of kings is the joy of fools... The Mullah was sitting by the watercourse under the old weeping willow, meditating on the difficulty to bath more than once in the same river. As he sat, a busy fox slipped into the water. A whirlpool almost drowned her. Then the currents tired her. Exhausted and drenched to the bone she was lucky enough to grab a hanging weed with her teeth. She kept afloat waiting to gather strength, enough to climb out the riverside. But she was really too weak to rise. This is when a bunch of leeches found good to stick unto the fox and feast merrily of her blood. Seeing such misfortune our good Mullah wished to help. The wet fox was too heavy and too mad to pull out of the water with only one hand. Hoca was afraid that he could also slip over the muddy edge. The best he could do was to pull the awful leaches and appease the misery of the poor fox. Now what do you think? Through her clenched teeth the fox yelped: "Stop doing this, fool!" "Why?" asked Nasrudin, "I'm trying to lessen your ache" "Why! Why! Don't you see that the leeches on my back are already full? If you take these away, new, hungry ones will come to tax me and suck my blood with fresh appetite, all over again.

(c) Copyright 1998-2004 Ioan Tenner