The Box of Tall Tales

Once upon a time, there lived a poor man who was a great master at spinning tall tales. One day, a rich man summoned him and said:

"I've heard you're quite the trickster. But I bet you can't fool me. If you do, though, I'll give you ten gold coins."

"Thank you so much," the poor man replied, delighted. "I could really use those ten gold coins. But there's just one problem..."

"What is it?" asked the rich man.

"Well, I didn't know why you were calling me... I didn't know, so I left my box of tall tales at home."

"What kind of box is that?" the rich man asked, surprised.

"It's a marvelous box! It's full of all sorts of lies. Without it, how can I possibly compete with you? Send your servants to my house, let them fetch the box quickly, and then we'll have our contest."

The rich man sent his servants to the poor man's house. They ran there, searched the entire place, but couldn't find the box. They returned empty-handed.

"You fools! You didn't look hard enough!" the rich man scolded. But the poor man stayed silent for a while, then suddenly burst out laughing:

"It's not so hard to fool you after all!"

The poor man took his ten gold coins and went home. Fairy girl