The next morning he called the beggar to him. “My friend,” said he, “I grieve sadly for the story you told me last night. But maybe, after all, your luck is not all gone. And now, if you will choose as you should choose, you shall not go away from here comfortless. In the pantry yonder are two great pies—one is for you and one for me. Go in and take whichever one you please.”
“A pie!” thought the beggar to himself; “does the man think that a big pie will comfort me for the loss of three hundred pieces of money?” Nevertheless, as it was the best thing to be had, into the pantry the beggar went and there began to feel and weigh the pies, and the one filled with the rusty nails and scraps of iron was ever so much the fatter and the heavier.
“This is the one that I shall take,” said he to the rich man, “and you may have the other.” And, tucking it under his arm, off he tramped.
Well, before he got back to the town he grew hungry, and sat down by the roadside to eat his pie; and if there was ever an angry man in the world before, he was one that day—for there was his pie full of nothing but rusty nails and bits of iron. “This is the way the rich always treat the poor,” said he.
So back he went in a fume. “What did you give me a pie full of old nails for?” said he.
“You took the pie of your own choice,” said the rich man; “nevertheless, I meant you no harm. Lodge with me here one night, and in the morning I will give you something better worth while, maybe.”
So that night the rich man had his wife bake two loaves of bread, in one of which she hid the bag with the three hundred pieces of gold money.
“Go to the pantry,” said the rich man to the beggar in the morning, “and there you will find two loaves of bread—one is for you and one for me; take whichever one you choose.”
So in went the beggar, and the first loaf of bread he laid his hand upon was the one in which the money was hidden, and off he marched with it under his arm, without so much as saying thank you.
“I wonder,” said he to himself, after he had jogged along awhile—“I wonder whether the rich man is up to another trick such as he played upon me yesterday?” He put the loaf of bread to his ear and shook it and shook it, and what should he hear but the chink of the money within. “Ah ha!” said he, “he has filled it with rusty nails and bits of iron again, but I will get the better of him this time.”