One day, the boys of Nasreddin’s
village said to him, ‘You
have a nice, fat sheep. Will you invite us to a party to eat it with you ?’
Nasreddin did not want the boys
to eat his sheep, so he said, ‘It
is not fat enough yet.’
‘But have you not heard ?’ they said. ‘The world is going to
end tomorrow, so the sheep will never get fat !’
Nasreddin was getting tired of
this, so he said, ‘All
right, boys, we will have a picnic tomorrow, and eat the sheep.’
So the next morning they all went
to the river, the boys took off their clothes and jumped into the water, and Nasreddin
killed the sheep.
When the boys came out, their
clothes were not there.
‘Where are our clothes,
Nasreddin ?’
They asked.
‘Oh,’ he answered, ‘I made the fire to cook the sheep
with your clothes. You will not need them again. The world is going to end
today, don’t you remember ?’