"Thieves" joke
It is said: "A thief is a person of low position, but he can outwit a man of noble character." In the Shuifu Temple of my county, there was a big hanging bell. Once some countrymen from Baling came down the river and moored their boat nearby. They wanted to steal the bell with which to cast farming tools. Between them they removed the bell from the belfry and lowered it onto the ground. Having stuffed the bell with mud, they smashed it into pieces and carried the fragments away with shoulder poles. Not a sound was heard by the villagers in the neighborhood. Again I heard of a thief who broke into a house in broad daylight and stole a chime stone. * When he stepped out the door into the street, he fell in with the master of the house coming home. "Grandpa," the thief greeted him and asked, " do you want to buy a chime stone?" "No, thanks," replied the old man, " I already have one at home." Thereupon, the thief walked off with what he had stolen. It was only when the old man looked for his chime stone toward evening that he realized the man had stolen it. Another story goes that a man was walking along the street with a cauldron on his back when he felt a call of nature. He put it on the ground to pass water. It so happened that a thief walking by saw it. Surreptitiously he took it and putting it on his head stood there and passed water also. When the owner of the cauldron finished and looked for it, he could not find it anywhere. "How careless of you!" the thief blamed him. "You see the cauldron on my head? I put it there to guard against theft. Imagine putting yours on the ground. No wonder it was stolen." The above incidents show that thieves are crafty and can outwit men of noble character.
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