Nasrudin used to take a donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, staffed the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. [...] One of the customs officers met him years later.
"You can tell me now, Nasrudin," he said. "Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?" (Nasreddin)

Nasrudin used to take a donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, staffed the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. [...] One of the customs officers met him years later. "You can tell me now, Nasrudin," he said. "Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?"

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across catch day donkey guards home later met night now person smuggling straw take tell water whatever years customs

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