Nasreddin woke up in the middle of the night and saw something white in his garden. It seemed to be moving towards the house.

'That is a thief!' he thought, and he took his gun and shot at him. Then he went back to bed, because he was too frightened to go out of the house in dark.

The next morning Nasreddin went out and saw one of his white shirts hanging on the clothes-line in the garden. His wife had washed it the day before and hung it out to dry. Now it had a bullet-hole right through the middle of it.

'My God,' said Nasreddin, 'I was lucky last night. If I had been wearing that shirt, the bullet would have killed me!' And he called his neighbours together and asked them to thank God for saving him.