The Wise and The Clever

Mullah Nasrudin 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 man said to him:

"Mullah, 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 might be true,"said Nasrudin, "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."