The Idiot

Mullah Nasruddin used to stand in the street on market-days, to be pointed out as an idiot. No matter how often people offered him a large and a small coin, he always chose the smaller piece. One day a kindly man said to him: Mullah Nasruddin, you should take the bigger coin. Then you will have more money and people will no longer be able to make a laughing stock of you. That may be true, said Mullah Nasruddin, but if I always take the larger, people will stop offering me money to prove that I am more idiotic than they are. Then I would have no money at all.