“How much will you give?” said Babo.
“Well,” said the king, “let me have it for a day on trial, and at the end of that time I will pay you what it is worth.”
“Very well,” said Babo, “that is a bargain;” and so he lent the king his piece of advice for one day on trial.
Now the chief councillor and some others had laid a plot against the king’s life, and that morning it had been settled that when the barber shaved him he was to cut his throat with a razor. So after the barber had lathered his face he began to whet the razor, and to whet the razor.
Just at that moment the king remembered Babo’s piece of advice. “Think well!” said he; “think well! Before you do what you are about to do, think well!”
When the barber heard the words that the king said, he thought that all had been discovered. Down he fell upon his knees, and confessed everything.
That is how Babo’s advice saved the king’s life—you can guess whether the king thought it was worth much or little. When Babo came the next morning the king gave him ten chests full of money, and that made the simpleton richer than anybody in all that land.
He built himself a fine house, and by-and-by married the daughter of the new councillor that came after the other one’s head had been chopped off for conspiring against the king’s life. Besides that, he came and went about the king’s castle as he pleased, and the king made much of him. Everybody bowed to him, and all were glad to stop and chat awhile with him when they met him in the street.
One morning Babo looked out of the window, and who should he see come travelling along the road but Simon Agricola himself, and he was just as poor and dusty and travel-stained as ever.
“Come in, come in!” said Babo; and you can guess how the wise man stared when he saw the simpleton living in such a fine way. But he opened his eyes wider than ever when he heard that all these good things came from the piece of advice he had given Babo that day they had parted at the cross roads.