Once there was a stingy man who took extra good care of every¬thing that belonged to him. Everyone knew that the man was a miser; he was famous for his stinginess. One day a man named Goha said to his friends in the market place, “I am going to play a joke on the miser.”

“What will you do?” asked his friends.

“You"ll hear about it, I’m sure,” Goha replied. Then he went to the miser and said, “Today I am expecting guests. I need a large cooking pot, and I know you have one just the size I need. I came to borrow it.”

The miser, not wanting to lend his things to anyone, stammered, “I don"t think mine is good enough for you.”

“I am sure it is more than adequate,” insisted Goha. The miser gave him the large cooking pot because he could think of no reason to refuse. Goha used the cooking pot and before he returned it, he put a small cooking pot inside the big one.

The miser said, “What is the small cooking pot doing here? “

Goha said, “Your cooking pot gave birth to the little one. It happens to pots that I borrow: the large cooking pot gives birth to a small cooking pot.

“By Allah, that is strange; but it is a very fine thing.”

The miser happily took both pots.

After a time Goha asked again for the loan of a pot. He used it and he put another small pot in the big one when he took it back.

“What"s this, another cooking pot?”

“That"s what it is. Whenever I borrow a thing it gives birth to another of its kind.” The miser was very pleased. The gain of even a small cooking pot made him happy.

A week later, Goha said, “I am expecting guests and I would like to borrow five cooking pots, five big ones.”

“Certainly,” said the miser and got out all the cooking pots he owned and gave them to his neighbor.

One day went by and another, and than a week, and a month. The miser went to Goha and said, “I see that you haven"t yet returned my cooking pots.”

“Oh, dear neighbor, I have been embarrassed to face you.”

“Why? Why"s that?”

“Your five cooking pots died in childbirth.”

“And how could cooking pots die?” said the astonished miser.

“If you don"t believe it, then let me ask you how cooking pots could bear children? When I gave you a small cooking pot with each big one, you took it. When the pots gave birth you were delighted. But now they are dead, and that"s that. Go tell the people about it. Tell them the story and see what they say.

The miser realized he had been taken for a fool, and so he kept quiet about the story of his cooking pots.