The customers at the other tables now craned their necks and one by one they came over to observe the miracle cure. You can imagine what happened! But no, the first bite seemed to do the patient no good at all, he gave a terrible scream. The doctor was pleased! They had, he said, got the better of the pain, and quickly he gave him the second pill to be taken likewise. Now suddenly the pain had all gone. The patient jumped for joy, wiped the sweat from his brow, though there was none there, and pretended to show his thanks by pressing more than a trifling sum into his saviour’s hand. The trick was artfully done and had its desired effect. For all those present now wanted some of these excellent pills too. The doctor offered them at twenty-four kreuzers a packet, and they were all sold in a few minutes. Of course the two scoundrels now left separately one after the other, met up to laugh at the people’s stupidity, and had a good time on their money.

The fools had paid dear for a few crumbs of bread! Even in times of famine you never got so little for twenty-four kreuzers. But the waste of money was not the worst part of it. For in time the pellets of breadcrumbs naturally became as hard as stone. So when a year later a poor dupe had toothache and confidently bit on a pill with the offending tooth, once and then again, just imagine the awful pain that he had got himself for twenty-four kreuzers instead of a cure!

From this we can learn how easy it is to be tricked if you believe what is told you by any vagrant whom you meet for the first time in your life, have never seen before and will never see again. Some of you who read this will perhaps be thinking: ‘I was once silly like that too and brought suffering on myself!’

Remember: Those who can, earn their money elsewhere and don’t go around villages and fairs with holes in their stockings, or a white buckle on one shoe and a yellow one on the other.

Two Stories

How easily some people can be annoyed and lose their tempers over trifles, and how easily these same people can be brought to their senses by an unexpected quick-thinking reaction. That we saw in the example of the quick-witted servant whose master threw the soup out of the window. The following two stories teach a similar lesson.

A street urchin asked an elegantly dressed passer-by for a penny, and when he turned a deaf ear he promised to show him for a penny how you can get angry and abusive and violent. As you read this many of you will be saying to yourselves that’s not worth a farthing let alone a penny, for abuse and violence are bad, not good at all! But it’s worth more than you think! For if you know how something bad can come about you also know how to stop it happening. This man must have thought that too, for he gave the boy a penny. But the urchin now demanded another penny, and when he got that, a third and fourth, and finally a sixth. And when he wouldn’t even then do his piece the man lost patience. He called the boy a shameless beggar, threatened to chase him off with his stick, and in the end he did indeed strike him more than once. ‘You ill-mannered brute you,’ cried the boy, ‘you’re old enough to know better! Didn’t I promise to teach you how you get abusive and violent? Haven’t you given me sixpence to do just that? Now you are violent, and you can see how that came about! So why are you hitting me?’ Much as the good man disliked this turn of events he saw that the cunning lad was right and he was wrong. He calmed down, took it as a warning never to flare up like that again and thought the lesson he had been given was indeed worth sixpence.

A citizen in another town was hurrying down the street, looking very serious. You could tell he had something important to attend to. The town magistrate, who must have been a prying and quick-tempered man, was passing that way, the bailiff at his heels. where are you off to in such a hurry?’ he said to the citizen, who answered very calmly, ‘Your Honour, I don’t know that myself.’ ‘But you don’t look as if you’re just out for a stroll! You must have something important to attend to!’ ‘That may be,’ the citizen continued, ‘but I swear I don’t know where I’m going.’ The magistrate was now greatly annoyed. Perhaps he also suspected that the man was up to no good and couldn’t admit it. Anyway, in all seriousness he threatened to take him straight off the street into prison if he wouldn’t say where he was going. But that got him nowhere, and in the end the magistrate really did order the bailiff to take this obstinate fellow away. But then the man, who had his wits about him, said, ‘Now, Your Honour, you can see that I was telling the truth! How could I have known a minute ago that I was on the way to jail? And can I be certain even now that that’s where I’m going?’ ‘No, you can’t’ said the magistrate, ‘and you shan’t go to jail!’ The citizen’s quick-thinking response brought the magistrate to his senses. He secretly reproached himself for being so testy, and let the man go on his way.

It is after all worth remembering that a person who seems quite ordinary can still now and again teach a lesson to someone who thinks himself marvellously wise and sensible.

Settling Accounts with a Ghost

In a certain village that I could name there’s a path through the churchyard which then goes over a field belonging to the man who lives next to the church, and it’s a right of way.