Nasruddin and the Smell of the Food

Outside a cook-shop one day sat a poor man with nothing to eat but a small piece of dry bread. From the shop drifted the most wonderful smell of cooking, rich and warm and delicious. And the poor man, to make his plain bread a little nicer, held it up in the steam and breathed in the lovely smell as he ate.

The cook spotted him and came storming out. “Aha!” he cried. “You are flavouring your bread with the smell of my cooking! That smell is mine, and you must pay me for it!”

“But I have only eaten my own dry bread,” said the poor man. “I have taken nothing of yours.”

“You have taken the smell!” shouted the cook. “Pay up!” And when the poor man, who had no money at all, could not pay, the angry cook dragged him off to the judge.

Now, it happened that the wise Mullah Nasruddin was the judge that day. He listened carefully to the cook, who insisted he was owed money for the smell of his food. And he listened to the poor man, who had only breathed the air. Then Nasruddin nodded slowly, as if deciding something very serious.

He reached into his own purse and took out a few coins. He held them beside the cook’s ear, and gave them a good shake, so the coins jingled and clinked together. Then he put them straight back in his purse.

“There,” said Nasruddin. “You have been paid.”

“Paid?” spluttered the cook. “But I felt nothing! I only heard the sound of the coins!”

“Precisely,” said Nasruddin, with a small smile. “This man enjoyed only the smell of your food. So it is only right that you should be paid with the sound of his money. The case is closed.”