dressing the stranger, 'if you have ever
seen a stone swimming?'

'Most certainly I have,' replied the other man, 'and, what is more, I
saw the same stone jump out of the water and fly through the air.'

'This is capital,' replied the thief. 'You and I must go into
partnership. We shall certainly make our fortunes. Let us start together
for the palace of the king of the neighbouring country. When we get
there, I will go into his presence alone, and will tell him the most
startling thing I can invent. Then you must follow and back up my lie.'

Having agreed to do this, they set out on their travels. After several
days' journeying, they reached the town where the king's palace was, and
here they parted for a few hours, while the thief sought an interview
with the king, and begged his majesty to give him a glass of beer.

'That is impossible,' said the king, 'as this year there has been a
failure of all the crops, and of the hops and the vines; so we have
neither wine nor beer in the whole kingdom.'

'How extraordinary!' answered the thief. 'I have just come from a
country where the crops were so fine that I saw twelve barrels of beer
made out of one branch of hops.'

'I bet you three hundred florins that is not true,' answered the king.

'And I bet you three hundred florins it is true,' replied the thief.

Then each staked his three hundred florins, and the king said he would
decide the question by sending a servant into that country to see if it
was true.

So the servant set out on horseback, and on the way he met a man, and
he asked him whence he came. And the man told him that he came from the
self-same country to which the servant was at that moment bound.

'If that is the case,' said the servant, 'you can tell me how high the
hops grow in your country, and how many barrels of beer can be brewed
from one branch?'

'I can't tell you that,' answered the man, 'but I happened to be present
when the hops were being gathered in, and I saw that it took three men
with axes three days to cut down one branch.'

Then the servant thought that he might save himself a long journey; so
he gave the man ten florins, and told him he must repeat to the king
what he had just told him. And when they got back to the palace, they
came together into the king's presence.

And the king asked him: 'Well, is it true about the hops?'

'Yes, sire, it is,' answered the servant; 'and here is a man I have
brought with me from the coun