said to the gardener, "If you will give me these sticks and leaves, I will get them out of the way." The gardener agreed to this, and told him to take them.
Chullaka's pupil[1] went to the children's playground, and by giving them molasses had all the leaves and sticks collected in a twinkling, and placed in a heap at the garden gate. Just then the king's potter was looking out for firewood to burn pots for the royal household, and seeing this heap he bought it from him. That day Chullaka's pupil got by selling his firewood sixteen pennies and five vessels — water-pots, and such-like.
Having thus obtained possession of twenty-four pennies, he thought, "This will be a good scheme for me," and went to a place not far from the city gate, and placing there a pot of water, supplied five hundred grass-cutters with drink.
"Friend! you have been of great service to us," said they. "What shall we do for you?"
"You shall do me a good turn when need arises," said he. And then, going about this way and that, he struck up a friendship with a trader by land and a trader by sea.
And the trader by land told him, "To-morrow a horse-dealer is coming to the town with five hundred horses."
On hearing this, he said to the grass-cutters, "Give me to-day, each of you, a bundle of grass, and don't sell your own grass till I have disposed of mine."
"All right!" cried they in assent, and brought five hundred bundles, and placed them in his house. The horse-dealer, not being able to get grass for his horses
- ↑ So called ironically, from the apt way in which he had learnt the lesson taught him by Chullaka.
