s house, and
roaring and rioting and dancing and singing. The wealth of a king could
not keep up such a life forever, so by the end of a year and a half the
last of the treasure was gone, and the young spendthrift was just as
poor as ever. Then once again his friends left him as they had done
before, and all that he could do was to rap his head and curse his
folly.

At last, one morning, he plucked up courage to go to the old man who had
helped him once before, to see whether he would not help him again. Rap!
tap! tap! he knocked at the door, and who should open it but the old man
himself. "Well," said the graybeard, "what do you want?"

"I want some help," said the spendthrift; and then he told him all, and
the old man listened and stroked his beard.

"By rights," said he, when the young man had ended, "I should leave you
alone in your folly; for it is plain to see that nothing can cure you of
it. Nevertheless, as you helped me once, and as I have more than I shall
need, I will share what I have with you. Come in and shut the door."

He led the way, the spendthrift following, to a little room all of bare
stone, and in which were only three things--the magic carpet, the iron
candlestick, and the earthen jar. This last the old man gave to the
foolish spendthrift. "My friend," said he, "when you chose the money and
jewels that day in the cavern, you chose the less for the greater. Here
is a treasure that an emperor might well envy you. Whatever you wish for
you will find by dipping your hand into the jar. Now go your way, and
let what was happened cure you of your folly."

"It shall," cried the young man; "never again will I be so foolish as I
have been!" And thereupon he went his way with another pocketful of good
resolves.

The first thing he did when he reached home was to try the virtue of his
jar. "I should like," said he, "to have a handful of just such treasure
as I brought from the cavern over yonder." He dipped his hand into
the jar, and when he brought it out again it was brimful of shining,
gleaming, sparkling jewels. You can guess how he felt when he saw them.

Well, this time a whole year went by, during which the young man lived
as soberly as a judge. But at the end of the twelvemonth he was so sick
of wisdom that he loathed it as one loathes bitter drink. Then by little
and little he began to take up with his old ways again, and to call his
old cronies around, until at the end of another twelvemonth