When she had concluded her statement, the judge
called on the young woman for her defense. She said she could not
disprove the statement, but that the claim was offset by a ladle that
had been borrowed by the plaintiff. There was a common saying:
"In the moon overhead, at its full, you can see
The trunk, branch and leaf of a cinnamon tree."
A branch from this tree had one night been blown down before her
father-in-law's door, and he had had a ladle made from the wood.
Whatever the ladle was put into never diminished by use. Whether wine,
oil, rice, or money, the bulk remained the same if no ladle beside
this one were used in dipping it. A foreign inn-keeper, hearing of
this ladle, came and offered her father-in-law three thousand ounces
of silver for it, but the offer was refused. And this ladle was the
one that the plaintiff had borrowed and destroyed.
The magistrate, on hearing this defense, understood that the cat had
been a pretext for extortion, and decided that the two claims offset
each other, so that no payment was due from either one.
* * * * *
THE YOUNG HEAD OF THE FAMILY
There was once a family consisting of a father, his three sons, and
his two daughters-in-law.
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