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Updated: May 9, 2025
"He was in excellent health," answered the Tofailian very feebly. "Speak, speak!" cried the eager father, "and tell me every detail: how far had he got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," said the simple fellow.
"Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined. Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure.
The Tofailian is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules, respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends a wedding-feast," says one of his apophthegms, "having no invitation, avoid glancing here and there dubiously.
A Tofailian of marked genius once learned that a festival was going on at a grand mansion. He ran thither, but the door was closed and entrance impossible. Inquiring here and there, he learned that a son of the house was absent on the Mecca pilgrimage.
"Surely," replied the good friend, and, comprehending that the critical moment had arrived, he drew to himself a chine of kid with one hand while he unwound the letter from his turban with the other. The seal was still moist, and the pilgrim had not found time to write anything on the parchment. "Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host with the illumination of a sudden idea.
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