THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS
THERE was once a poor man who had four sons, and when they were grown up, he said to them: “Dear children, you must go out into the world now, for I have nothing to give you. It is my wish that you should each learn a trade by which you can gain a comfortable livelihood, if not wealth.”
So the four brothers took their walking-staffs in their hands, bid their father good-by, and tramped away down the street and passed out of the town gate. After they had traveled some distance, they came to where four roads branched away from the one they were tramping. “Here we must part,” said the eldest brother, “but four years from this day we will meet here again, and tell each other what we have accomplished.”
Then each went his own way, and the eldest presently met a man, who asked him where he was going and what he intended to do.
“I want to learn a trade,” the youth answered.
“Then come with me and learn to be a thief,” said the man.
“No,” responded the youth, “that is no longer considered an honorable employment; and in the end I should swing as the clapper in the field bell.”
“Oh, you need not fear the gallows!” said the man. “I will only teach you how to take things that no one else wants or knows how to get hold of, and I will make you so expert that nobody can find you out.”
So the youth allowed himself to be persuaded, and he became, under the man’s instruction, such a clever thief that nothing was safe from him which he had once made up his mind to have.