inside, and said to the Carpenter's daughter, 'I am a stranger, and have travelled a long way; I am both tired and hungry: cook me some dinner as fast as you can, and I will pay you for your trouble.' She answered, 'I would willingly cook you some dinner at once, but I have no wood to light the fire, and the jungle is some way off.—"It matters not,' said the Rajah, 'this will do to light the fire, and I'll make the loss good to your father.' And taking a pair of new clogs which the Carpenter had just finished making, he broke them up, and lighted the fire with them.
Next morning he went into the jungle, cut wood, and having made a pair of new clogs,—better than those with which he had lighted the fire the evening before,—placed them with the rest of the goods for sale in the Carpenter's shop. Shortly afterwards one of the Rajah of that country's servants came to buy a pair of clogs for his master, and seeing these new ones, said to the Carpenter, 'Why, man, these clogs are better than all the rest put together. I will take none other to the Rajah. I wish you would always make such clogs as these.' And throwing down ten gold mohurs[1] on the floor of the hut, he took up the clogs and went away.
The Carpenter was much surprised at the whole business. In the first place, he usually received only two or three rupees[2] for each pair of clogs; and in the second, he knew that those which the Rajah's servant had judged worth ten gold mohurs had not been made by him; and how they had come there he could not think, for he felt certain they were not with the rest of the clogs the night before. He thought and thought, but the more he thought about the matter, the more puzzled he got, and he went to talk about it to his wife and daughter. Then his daughter said, 'Oh, those must have been the clogs the stranger made!' And she told her father how he had lighted the fire the night before with two of the clogs which were for sale, and had afterwards fetched wood from the jungle and made another pair to replace them.
The Carpenter at this news was more astonished than ever, and he thought to himself, 'Since this stranger seems a quiet, peaceable sort of man, and can make clogs so well, it is a great pity he should leave this place—he would make a good husband for my daughter;' and, catching hold of the young Rajah, he propounded his scheme to him. (But all this time he had no idea that his guest was a Rajah.)
