Abdulla Qahhor: “O‘g‘ri”

Qahhor takes a folk proverb as the epigraph of the story. The events revolve around old Qobil bobo: his only spotted ox is stolen by a thief who has made a hole in the stable wall. The ellikboshi examines the stable and promises that the ox will be found, and Qobil bobo gives him all the money in his purse to please him. Then the old man goes to the amin and after that to the pristav: he gives money again to the amin; to reach the pristav he gives the interpreter eggs collected by neighbours and his own hens, and the pristav himself also takes hens and three so‘m. His wife too goes to a charm-reader hoping the ox will be found, taking grain and thread. Nobody does the work: each official sends Qobil bobo on to the next one, and in the end the matter returns to the ellikboshi. The ellikboshi now addresses him politely and takes him to his own father-in-law, the cotton dealer Egamberdi; he gives the old man two oxen but says there is a “small” condition, which the old man will learn only in autumn. In this way the story shows that the real “thieves” are the officials who take from the people.