Nasrudin saw a man selling a beautifully made sword in the market.
   ‘How can a piece of steel be worth fifty gold pieces?’ he asked.
   The auctioneer saw that he was no connoisseur of art and said: ‘This is
a magical sword. In battle it stretches itself by several feet and outreaches
the enemy.’
   Within minutes the Mulla was back with a pair of firetongs. ‘Sell these,’ he
told the auctioneer, ‘and note that the reserve price is a hundred gold pieces.’
   ‘I hardly think that you will get more than a few coppers for these,’ said
the man.
   ‘Nonsense,’ said the Mulla. ‘They may appear to be ordinary enough
tongs. But when my wife throws them at me, even from thirty feet, they
leap across the gap, invisibly extended.’