It happened one night that Mullah Nasruddin had a most remarkable dream. In it, to his great delight, he succeeded in selling his old donkey at an exorbitant price. The skinny, worn out beast—well known and laughed at by all the village—was hardly worth a single silver coin, but in the dream, the Mullah had persuaded a stranger to pay him the enormous sum of ten silver pieces! The deal concluded, Nasruddin held out his hand and watched with great satisfaction while the stranger counted out the money: …six, seven, eight, nine…

And then the coins stopped. Nasruddin shook his palm in front of the stranger, but the final coin did not appear.

“Come on,” Nasruddin demanded angrily, “one more! We agreed on ten, you know—ten!!” And he shouted the last word with such force that he woke himself up.

For a moment he lay in bed, blinking in the darkness. Then he stretched out his hand, shut his eyes tight and said, “Okay, I’ll take the nine coins and it’s a deal.”