‘Did not I tell you, O king, that this is a cunning thief? But do you go and buy up all the joints of meat in the city. And charge a ducat the two pounds, so that no one will care to buy any, unless he has come into a lot of money. But that thief won’t be able to hold out three days.’
Then the king went and bought up all the joints, and left one joint; and that one he priced at a ducat the pound. So nobody came to buy that day. Next day the thief would stay no longer. He took a cart and put a horse in it, and drove to the meat-market. And he pretended he had damaged his cart, and lamented he had not an axe to repair it with. Then a butcher said to him, ‘Here, take my axe, and mend your cart.’ The axe was close to the meat. As he passed to take the axe, he picked up a big piece of meat, and stuck it under his coat. And he handed the axe back to the butcher, and departed home.
The same day comes the king, and asks the butchers, ‘Have you sold any meat to any one?’ They said, ‘We have not sold to any one.’
So the king weighed the meat, and found it twenty pounds short. And he went to the old thief in prison, and said to him, ‘He has stolen twenty pounds of meat, and no one saw him.’
‘Didn’t I tell you, O king, that this is a cunning thief?’
‘Well, what am I to do, old thief?’
‘What are you to do? Why, make a proclamation, and offer in it all the money you possess, and say he shall become king in your stead, merely to tell who he is.’
Then the king went and wrote the proclamation, just as the old thief had told him. And he posted it outside by the gate. And the thief comes and reads it, and thought [[45]]how he should act. And he took his heart in his teeth and went to the king, and said, ‘O king, I am the thief.’
‘You are?’
‘I am.’