Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1884 — Got His Answer. [ARTICLE]

Got His Answer.

The absence of ordinary curiosity from the Arabs and their ingenious stupidity often perplex a scholar traveling among them and anxious to acquire their idioms. Prof. Palmer, while in the Desert of Sinai, wished to know the form of the interrogative particle “when.” Chancing to be walking with an intelligent Arab, the Professor asked: “Supposing you were to meet a man with an ibex on his shoulder, how should you ask him when he shot it?” “I shouldn’t ask him at all,” he replied, “because I shouldn’t care” “But if you did care, w hat should you say to him?” “What should I say to him ? Why, I should say, ‘Good-morning!’ ” The persistent Professor, not to be baffled, walked a few moments in silence and then said: “Saleh, I saw your wife. ” “When?” said the startled Arab. And down went the word in the Professor’s note-book.