Every person should be careful not to throw bread upon the ground or to let it stay there, lest anyone should tread upon it.

Abbaye remarked: "I had thought that the reason why people sweep the room after meals is in order that the room may be clean, but now I understand that it is for the purpose of preventing people from treading on the bread crumbs, for he who treads upon bread, may be reduced to extreme poverty.

Once upon a time there was a man who was very hard pressed by the demon

Nabil, who presides over bread, and who wanted to reduce him to poverty, thinking that he might leave bread on the ground to be trodden upon.

One day the man took his meal upon the grass. Then the demon who presides over poverty thought: 'Now I will get the best of him, for he cannot pick up the bread crumbs from the grass, and is sure to tread upon them.' But no sooner had the man finished his meal than he took a rake and dug up the grass with the crumbs in it and threw the grass with the crumbs into the water. Then he heard a voice saying 'Woe

unto me, this man has driven me away from his house where I have been living. I hoped to get the mastery over him, and now I must desist from him.' Therefore one should be careful not to drop bread on the ground or to leave it there."

Nowadays we pay little regard, and many a good man has to suffer hard.