The Cheater and the Monkey

A greedy merchant -worked in selling beverages- always kept a tank of water in his store to mix water in fifty percent with the drinks he sold, thus he could sell it with cheaper price than other merchants in his town and made much more profits than them.

The merchant has no wife or children; he felt that his life is boring, so for his pleasure he bought a small monkey to make some fun in his life and after while the monkey became his favorite pet he had.

One day the merchant decided to have a business trip to deliver some money to invest in a new business, so he took a big amount of money and put it in his purse and kept it in his backpack.

Because he is so greedy he decided to travel by the sea because it's too much cheaper than other ways to travel and he could gain a lot of profits during this journey by selling stuff to the passengers and the sailors as well. So he took a big (beverages goatskin) with him and started making some business there, but he never forgot to mix it with water too. He also took his monkey to amuse him during this trip.

The business was good and he sold his juice till last drop. In the middle of the journey while they were at the open sea the monkey suddenly took the purse away and hurry climbed the ship mast and started to do a strange thing, he began to drop one piece of (coin) into the sea and one to the ship until all the money finished.

The people on the ship saw that situation with too much surprising and did not understand why the monkey did that to his owner and started to express their sympathy to the merchant.

The only one in this scene understand what happened was of course the merchant, he smiled with regret at doing that cheating all his life and thought that the monkey dropped on the ship only what he deserve to get from his selling and said to himself “what goes around comes around”[i]