144. The Stingy Man's Dinner
A stingy man and his wife were about to eat dinner when a neighbor knocked.
"Say I'm dead!" the man hissed at his wife, and he stretched out in the bed.
"Alas, my dead husband!" she wailed.
The neighbor was suspicious, seeing dinner on the table. As a joke, he also wailed, calling the villagers to carry the man to the burning-grounds.
"Get up; they're going to cremate you," the wife hissed.
"No!" her husband hissed back.
So he lay there motionless while they carried him away and burned his body.
All because he didn't want to share his dinner.
Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 150.
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