SIMPLE STORIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 211, 9 July 1943, Page 4

SIMPLE STORIES

HE BOUGHT A TRAMCAR OU will laugh, but this is true. For the first time in his life an old peasant from Upper Egypt arrived in Cairo with almost £100, his life’s savings. It was such a fabulous sum that he felt important, and talked. In a cafe he made the acquaintance of two men who told him of fortunes to be made in Cairo, Thereupon he expressed the wish to invest his savings. His new friends had a friend who sold tramcars. The enthusiastic Fellah was conducted into the office of the seller of tramcars, who drew up an agreement and wrote out a receipt for £95, and handed them to the new and proud possessor. Then _he was taken to a busy intersection where he made his choice of a well-crowded vehicle. His two friends boarded the centre of the car while he rode on the rear platform eagerly eyeing the conductor as he gathered the fascinating coins from the passengers. At the end of the return journey he commanded the conductor to hand over his takings. The latter naturally refused. The owner rushed through the tram looking for his two friends, but they had departed. Excitedly he called a policeman to arrest the conductor for keeping the takings; the car was his; he had an agreement and receipts, both of which he produced. But the stones of the desert grow cold. After much arguing with the arm of the law and the tramway management, a poorer but wiser Fellah found his way home. There the story should have ended, But it didn’t. This time he did not merely talk. He lifted up his voice and wailed. A few weeks later an understanding Bey with a large heart sent this unfortunate fool the sum of £95.