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everybody awake!"
133.
One day Mahmood met Mulla Nasrudin and said: "Nasrudin, I have got a bargain for you! An elephant! A whole living elephant! And for just one thousand rupees."
Nasrudin said: "Are you crazy? What do I want with an elephant?"
"It's a beautiful elephant. All gray. Ten feet tall with a complete trunk."
"But I have nothing to feed it. I have no place to put it; I live in a three-room apartment."
"Two beautiful tusks, maybe two feet long each. It's a magnificent beast. They don't make them like that any more."
"Mahmood," said the Mulla, almost screaming. "I have a three-room walkup apartment on the sixth floor. Where will I keep an elephant?" "You are a hard man, Nasrudin," said Mahmood. "I will tell you what. I will throw a second whole elephant for only hundred rupees extra."
And Mulla Nasrudin said: "Now you are talking."
134.
Doctor Abrams was called to Mulla Nasrudin's shop where the Mulla was lying unconscious. Dr. Abrams worked on him for a long time, and finally revived him.
"How did you happen to drink that stuff, Nasrudin?" he asked the Mulla. "Didn't you see the label on the bottle? It said: POISON."
Nasrudin: "Yes, Doctor, but I didn't believe it."
Dr. Abrams: "Why not?"
Nasrudin: "Because whenever I believe someone I am deceived."
135.
"How is your wife?" Mulla Nasrudin asked the old friend he had not seen in years.
"She's in heaven," replied the friend.
"Oh, I am sorry," said the Mulla. But then he realized that was not the thing to say, so he added: "I mean, I am glad." And that was even worse. So Mulla Nasrudin came out with: "Well, I am surprised."
136.
The scene was a court-martial. Mulla Nasrudin was giving evidence against a private who was accused of calling a lieutenant an idiot.
"Now, Nasrudin," said the president of the court, "how can you be sure that the accused was in fact referring to Lieutenant Jones when he called him an idiot?"
"Well, sir," replied Mulla Nasrudin, "Lieutenant Jones was the only idiot there at the time."
137.
Mulla Nasrudin was subject
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