Baruch, a Palestinian peasant with a sick wife and no money to pay for medicine, finds his donkey has been stolen. He rushes off to try to recover it, but is beaten up by soldiers. In the process he finds out that an old bowl he uses for dyeing is made of gold, and will sell for more than the money he needs. Meanwhile we, with two thousand years of hindsight, can guess who has taken the donkey to ride in procession through Jerusalem.
According to his daughter, Canning was not a religious man.
Argosy, May 1962
Included in the collection Comedies and Whimsies, ed. John Higgins.