One Voice, Please

INTRODUCTION

Your collector of stories remembers stopping to eat in southern Ireland
years ago.

The place was a family pub, full of people relaxing around a turf fire and-so it seemed-all talking at once. Suddenly the landlord called out, "One voice, please. One voice only, please."

A hush fell over the company as a small man sitting in the chimney corner cleared his throat. He wore a battered hat and had huge red ears. And then, fixing his eyes on a thatch peg in the roof, he began to tell a story. That was the moment when this collection began. I've been collecting stories that have been told down the ages ever since. These are some of my favorites. You and I are present in these tales of truth and trickery. So, hush: one voice only, please. . . .

People are full of rage nowadays; you must have seen this for yourself. But is there anything new about road rage and supermarket cart rage? Not a bit; rage is as old as the human race.

DINNER OUTSIDE

A servant had a short-tempered master, who came down to Sunday dinner in a bad mood.

"The soup is too hot!" he raged, and thumped the table.

Well, if the soup hadn't been too hot, it would have been too cold, for no soup could have pleased him that day. He would have picked a fight with the perfect bowl of soup. Lifting the dish, he pitched it, soup and all, out of the open window into the yard below. The good servant who had brought the soup did not hesitate for a moment. He threw the meat he was bringing to the table straight out of the window. Then the bread. And after the bread went the jug of wine. As a matter of fact, he threw the tablecloth and every item on it out of the window and into the yard, too. There was a terrible tinkling of falling cutlery and breaking glass.

"What the devil do you think you're doing?" cried the master, rising to his feet.

The good servant looked at him out of marvelously innocent eyes. "Have I misunderstood your intentions? Pardon me, Master, but when I saw the soup leave the room, I thought you wanted to eat outside today. After all, the weather is warm, the sky is blue . . .and, behold, the bees are buzzing around the apple blossom!"

It was a fine lesson in how to deal with bad manners. One hopes that the master had the character to learn from it, and that the soup never flew out of the window again.

Money gives everybody trouble
at one time or another.

WITNESSES

There was once a man-neither the first nor the last-who had a problem with a loan.

This is how he explained the problem to his friends at the inn.

"I lent ten silver crowns to a cousin of mine, who shows no sign of paying them back. And now I need the money. He just laughs when I ask him, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever see my ten crowns again. If only I had witnesses! But I gave him the money in private, so I can't prove it. The fellow could deny everything."

His friends, all too familiar with the horrors of borrowing and lending money, made sympathetic noises. Then the innkeeper spoke. "If it's a witness you're after, I can help you there."

"How?"

"Ask your cousin to come here tomorrow night. Remind him quietly in front of us all that he still owes you a hundred silver crowns."

"But I only lent him ten!"

"Aye, that's what he'll say, too," said the innkeeper. "And you shall have your witnesses."
You can work wonders when you're
highly motivated. Ask Master Hound.

THE RUNNING HARE

ONE MORNING in March, a dog went after a hare in the meadow. It was a mighty chase, in and out of the rushes and the bushes. At the last moment, the hare gave a jump and a twist, and escaped into open country. An old fellow had been watching all of this through
a gap in the hedge.

He said, "Well, Master Hound, I see that Hare had the beating of you this morning."

"Don't pretend to be surprised," replied the dog, still panting after his exertions. "I was running for my lunch, but the hare . . . he was running for his life."
DAYDREAMING
Once there was a potter who surpassed himself by making a lovely pot. This new pot had a tall, elegant shape, with a glaze as blue as cornflowers and fancy bits curling around the neck. All in all, it was a work of art.

Off he went to the market, carrying the pot in his arms and determined to sell it for nothing less than a shilling. The potter paused to rest on a bridge and began to think how nice it would be if he were to get more than a shilling for his pot. This might be my lucky day, he said to himself. A rich lady passing by might stop her carriage and buy my pot for a silver crown!

Then he began to think what he could do with a whole silver crown. He could buy enough clay to make ten pots and have ten more silver crowns-and then he could buy one of those little boats anchored along the river. After a few years of being a potter and a fisherman,
he could almost certainly afford a bigger boat-in fact, a ship. Then he would come sailing home from the east with the hold full of silks and spices, and the beautiful daughter of a rich merchant would fall in love with him. . . .This mighty chain of events seemed so real to the
potter on the bridge that he looked to see whether a rich lady in a carriage might be passing this way. Alas, it mattered not, for as he turned, he knocked the pot off the bridge. Down it fell, spinning over and over, until it smashed on the rocks below. There was nothing to do but go home. So much for daydreaming, thought the potter. Next time I'll take my pot straight to the market, and I'll sell it to the first soul who offers me a shilling.