The folk-tales of the Magyars/Luck and Bliss

LUCK AND BLISS.

UCK and Bliss went out one day, and came to a town where they found a poor man selling brooms, but nobody seemed to buy anything from him. Bliss thereupon said, "Let us stop, and I will buy them all from the poor fellow, so that he may make a good bargain." So they stopped, and Bliss bought them all, and gave him six times the market value of them, in order that the poor man might have a good start.

On another occasion they came to the same town and found the man still selling brooms. Bliss bought them all, and gave him ten times their market value. They came a third time to the town, and the man was still selling brooms, whereupon Luck said, "Let me try now, for, see, you have bought them all twice, and in vain, for the man is a poor broom-seller still;" so Luck bought them, but she did not give a penny more than the market price. They came to the town a fourth time and saw the man who had sold brooms leading wheat into town in a wagon with iron hoops on the wheels and drawn by four fine bullocks. When they saw this Luck said to Bliss, "Do you see that man who used to sell brooms? You bought them all twice for a very high price. I bought them but once, and that for the market value, and the consequence of my having done so is that he no longer sells brooms, as he used to do, but wheat, and it appears he must have got on well with his farm too."