Lieh Yü-khâu had started to go to Khî, but came back when he was half-way to it. He met Po-hwän Wû-zän, who said, 'Why have you come back?' His reply was, 'I was frightened.' 'What frightened you?' 'I went into ten soup-shops to get a meal. and in five of them the soup was set before me before I had paid for it.' 'But what was there in that to frighten you?' Lieh-dze said, 'Vendors of soup supply their commodity simply as a matter of business, and however much they may dispose of, their profit is but little, and their power is but slight; and yet they treated me as I have said:--how much more would the lord of ten thousand chariots do so! His body burdened with the cares of his kingdom, and his knowledge overtasked by its affairs, he would entrust those affairs to me, and exact from me the successful conduct of its government. It was this which frightened me.' Po-hwän Wû-zän replied, 'Admirable perspicacity! But if you carry yourself as you do, men will flock to you for protection.'
Once upon a time a countryman came into the town on market-day, and brought a load of very special pears with him to sell. He set up his barrow in a good corner, and soon had a great crowd round him ; for everyone knew he always sold extra fine pears, though he did also ask an extra high price. Now, while he was crying up his fruit, a poor, old, ragged, hungry-looking priest stopped just in front of the barrow, and very humbly begged him to give him one of the pears. But the countryman, who was very mean and very nasty-tempered, wouldn't hear of giving him any, and as the priest didn't seem inclined to move on, he began calling him all the bad names he could think of. " Good sir," said the priest, " you have got hundreds of pears on your barrow. I only ask you for one. You would never even know you had lost one. Really, you needn't get angry." "Give him a pear that is going bad ; that will make him happy," said one of the crowd. "The o...
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