A MATTER OF SIZE
One day the Hodja had bought a lamb for the Moslem Festival of Sacrifice, which by the way is called Bairam in Turkey. He meant to fatten it until Bairam that was due in about eight weeks.
The lamb was cooperating finely when one day it disappeared. The poor Hodja left no stone unturned to find it, but all was in vain. A few days later he learned that it was his own lamb that had been served at the party given by one of his neighbors, at which he been a guest himself!
The Hodja took his revenge by giving a party himself, serving one of the kids of the Angora goat belonging to that same neighbor.
But unlike the Hodja, who had suffered the loss of his lamb in silence, his neighbor kept lamenting the loss of his Angora kid for weeks on end. Furthermore, as his neighbor related the story, the size of the Angora kid, which had originally been that of a medium-sized cat, kept growing alarmingly. When it had become as large as a cow, the Hodja could stand it no longer.
He rushed home and was back in no time with the hide of the kid in his hand, holding it up for everybody to see.
"Oh, good people!" he cried. "Here is the hide of the kid my neighbor has been pestering us about for the past three weeks! Judge for yourselves if it will fit a creature the size of a cow!"
