The Mouse Merchant
[Diligence and Gratitude]
Once upon a time, a famous adviser was on his way to a meeting with the king and other
advisers when he caught sight of a dead mouse by the roadside. “Even from such small
beginnings as this dead mouse, a diligent young fellow could build a fortune. As long as
he worked hard and used his intelligence, he could start a business and support a wife and
family,” he commented to those who were with him.
A passer-by heard the remark. Knowing that this was an important adviser of the king, he
decided to follow his words. He picked up the dead mouse by the tail and went off with it.
Lady Luck must be smiling at him for he hadn’t even gone a block, before a shopkeeper
stopped him. “My cat has been pestering me all morning. I’ll give you two copper coins for
that mouse,” he proposed. And a deal was made.
With the two copper coins, he got some sweet cakes and water and waited by the roadside.
As he expected, flower pickers were returning home from work. Hungry and thirsty, all of
them agreed to exchange a bunch of flowers each for some sweet cakes and water. In the
evening, the man sold the flowers in the city. He bought more sweet cakes using part of the
earnings and returned the next day to trade them with the flower pickers.
This went on for a while, until one day a terrible storm blew. While walking by the king’s
pleasure garden, he noticed that many branches had been ripped off the trees by the storm
and were lying all around. So he went to the king’s gardener and offered to clear them away
for him provided that he gets to keep the branches. The lazy gardener quickly agreed.
The man found some children playing in a park across the street. They were only too glad
to gather all the scattered branches in exchange for one sweet cake per child.
When the children were done, the king’s potter happened to walk by. He was always on
the lookout for firewood for his glazing oven. When he saw the piles of wood the children
had just collected, he paid the man a handsome sum of money for them. He also gave the
man some of his pots.
With the profits he earned from selling flowers and firewood, the man opened a refreshment
shop. One day, he treated all the local grass mowers, who were on their way to town, to
some sweet cakes and drinks. They were surprised by his generosity. “What can we do for
you?” they asked. He said there was nothing for them to do now, but he would let them
know in the future.
A week later, he heard that a horse dealer was coming to the city with 500 horses to sell.
He got in touch with the grass mowers and told each one to give him a bundle of grass. He
also requested them not to sell any grass to the horse dealer until he had sold his. And so,
he made another handsome profit.
Time passed until one day, some customers in his refreshment shop told him of a new
foreign ship that had just docked in the harbour. He felt this was too good an opportunity
to miss. He thought long and hard until he came up with a good business plan.
First, he went to a jeweller friend of his and paid a low price for a very valuable gold ring
with a beautiful sparkling ruby. He knew that the ship came from a foreign country which
had no rubies of its own, and where gold was expensive. Next, he gave the magnificent ring
to the captain of the ship as an advance on his commission. To earn this commission, the
captain agreed to send all the passengers to him. He would then take them to the finest
shops in the city. In return, the man received commissions from the merchants for bringing
customers to them.
The man soon became very rich after several ships had docked into port. Pleased with the
scale of his success, he remembered it all started with the words of the king’s wise adviser.
Grateful, he decided to give him a gift of 100,000 gold coins which was half of his entire
wealth. After making the proper arrangements, he met up with the king’s adviser and gave
him the present along with his humble thanks.
The adviser was amazed. “How did you earn so much money to afford such a generous
gift?” he asked curiously. The man then narrated all that had happened, how it all started
with the adviser’s own words not so long ago about the dead mouse, which finally led to a
large fortune.
After hearing his story, the royal adviser thought: “It would not be good to lose the talents
of such a diligent man. I’m also very rich and my only beloved daughter is still unmarried.
As this man is single, he deserves to marry her. Then he can inherit my wealth in addition
to his own, and my daughter will be well cared for.”
The man married the adviser’s daughter, and after the wise adviser died, he became the
richest man in the city. The king appointed him as the new adviser, and throughout the rest
of his life, he gave generously for the happiness and well-being of many people.
The moral is
✏
With energy and ability, great wealth comes even from small insignificant
beginnings.
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