ABSTRACT
IT is related that there was once in Cairo a druggist named Abu Kasim, who was celebrated for his avarice. Though Allah granted him riches and prosperity in his trade, he lived and dressed like the poorest beggar; his garments were a vast collection of rents and scraps; his turban was so old and dirty that it was impossible to tell its original colour; but, of all he wore, his slippers were the most notorious witnesses to his meanness. They were not only studded with great nails and armoured like a machine of war, and had soles mended a thousand times until they were as thick as the head of a hippopotamus, but their uppers were so patched that for twenty years one of the chief labours of the cleverest cobblers and curriers in Cairo had been to keep their component rubbish from disintegrating. Abu Kasim’s slippers were so heavy that they had become proverbial throughout all Egypt. When a guest stayed too long, they would say of him: ‘His manners are as heavy as Abu Kasim’s slippers.’ When a pedantic schoolmaster tried to be funny, they would say of him: ‘His wit is as heavy as Abu Kasim’s slippers.’ Porters would sigh, and say of their load: ‘It is as heavy as Abu Kasim’s slippers.’ When a nasty old woman in a harim would stop her master’s wives from playing together, they would say: ‘She is as heavy as Abu Kasim’s slippers.’ When a man ate indigestible food and felt a tempest rising in his belly, he would say: ‘Allah preserve me, that meat was as heavy as Abu Kasim’s slippers!’ In fact, folk would drag in Abu Kasim’s slippers in a thousand connections when heaviness was in question.
