For what it’s worth …

A friend calls on Narr-ed-din to borrow his donkey. “Very sorry,” says the Hodja, who does not want to lend the animal, “but the donkey is not here; I have hired him out for the day.”

Unfortunately, just at that moment the donkey begins to bray loudly, thus giving the direct lie to the Hodja.

“How is this, Hodja?” says his friend; “you say the donkey is away, and here he is braying in the stable!”

The Hodja, nothing daunted, replies in a grave manner: “My dear sir, please do not demean yourself so low as to believe the donkey rather than myself – a fellow-man and a venerable Hodja with a long gray beard.”

The moral of the last fable some people will never perceive. It is this:

An ass will always reveal himself by some inappropriate remark. Asses should be seldom seen, and never heard. The wise man hideth his ass when the borrower cometh around.