The King had allowed a pet elephant loose near Nasrudin’s village, and it was destroying crops.

The people decided to go in a body to Tamerlane to protest. Nasrudin, because he had been known to amuse the King at times, was appointed leader of the delegation.

So overawed were they by the magnificence of the Court that the group pushed Nasrudin into the audience-chamber and fled.

‘Yes,’ said the King, ‘what do you want, Nasrudin?’

‘About your elephant, your Majesty …’ stammered the Mulla. He saw that the King was in a bad temper that morning.

‘Yes – what about my elephant?’

‘We – that is, I, was thinking that it needed a mate’.