My cousin, Harry, keeps a large curiously-shaped bottle on permanent display in his study. Despite the fact that the bottle is tinted a delicate shade of green, an observant visitor would soon notice that it is filled with what looks like a thick, grayish substance.
If you were to ask Harry what was in the bottle, he would tell you that it contained perfumed mud. If you expressed doubt or surprise, he would immediately invite you to smell it and then to rub some into your skin. This brief experiment would dispel any further doubts you might have. The bottle really does contain perfumed mud.
How Harry came into the possession of this outlandish stuff makes an interesting story which he is fond of relating. Furthermore, the acquisition of this bottle cured him of a bad habit he had been developing for years.
Harry used to consider it a great joke to go into expensive cosmetic shops and make outrageous requests for goods that do not exist. He would invent fanciful names on the spot. On entering a shop, he would ask for a new perfume called 'Scented Shadow' or for 'insoluble bath cubes'. If a shop assistant told him she had not heard of it, he would pretend to be considerably put out. He loved to be told that one of his imaginary products was temporarily out of stock and he would faithfully promise to call again at some future date, but of course he never did. How Harry managed to keep a straight face during these performances is quite beyond me.
Harry does not need to be prompted to explain how he bought his precious bottle of mud. One day, while he was on holiday, he visited a temple. He noticed that there was an unusual amount of activity going on around an apparently derelict building. Asking around, he discovered that a monk had been living there for years. The monk had been violating the law, repeatedly begging for alms in the town. The townspeople were not very happy about this, but they did not want to offend the monk. They just wished he would go away.
Finally, the townspeople could not stand it any longer and decided to do something about it. They called in a local builder. The builder inspected the building and said that he would be able to make it habitable with a bit of repair work. The townspeople were very happy to hear this and immediately set about collecting money from the public. The builder said that he would start work as soon as he received the money.
The monk, who had heard about this, was not very happy. He did not want to lose his home. He thought of a plan. He went to a nearby cosmetics factory and bought a large bottle of perfumed mud. He took it back to the temple and poured it all over the building. When the townspeople and the builder arrived, they were horrified. The building was covered in a thick layer of grayish mud. The builder said that he could not possibly repair the building now. The townspeople were angry with the monk, but they did not want to get their hands dirty trying to clean it up. They just left the monk alone in his muddy building.
Harry, who had witnessed all this, was very amused. He thought that the monk was very clever. He decided to buy the bottle of mud from the monk. The monk was happy to sell it to him. Harry took the bottle home and put it on permanent display in his study.