Note 10 — Chapter CVIII

At first I was unwilling to eat of that dish, though he urged me to do so; but seeing that eating of it bestowed supernatural powers, I took two grains of rice from the cooking-vessel, and ate them. That produced in me the effect that wherever I spat, gold10 was immediately produced. Then I roamed about relieved from my poverty, and at last I reached a town. There I lived in the house of a hetæra, and, thanks to the gold I was able to produce, indulged in the most lavish expenditure; but the kuṭṭaní, eager to discover my secret, treacherously gave me an emetic. That made me vomit, and in the process the two grains of rice, that I had previously eaten, came out of my mouth, looking like two glittering rubies. And no sooner had they come out, than the kuṭṭaní snapped them up, and swallowed them. So I lost my power of producing gold, of which the kuṭṭaní thus deprived me.