s purse of money can do him no good now, and we might as
well have them as anybody else." So between them both they stripped the
beggar of all that the king had given him, and left him lying on the
beach.

At daybreak the beggar awoke from the swoon, and there he found himself
lying without a stitch to his back, and half dead with the cold and the
water he had swallowed. Then, fearing lest somebody might see him, he
crawled away into the rushes that grew beside the river, there to hide
himself until night should come again.

But as he went, crawling upon hands and knees, he suddenly came upon a
bundle that had been washed up by the water, and when he laid eyes upon
it his heart leaped within him, for what should that bundle be but the
patches and tatters which he had worn the day before, and which the
attendants had thrown over the garden wall and into the river when they
had dressed him in the fine clothes the king gave him.

He spread his clothes out in the sun until they were dry, and then he
put them on and went back into the town again.

"Well," said the king, that morning, to his chief councillor, "what do
you think now? Am I not greater than Fate? Did I not make the beggar
rich? And shall I not paint my father's words out from the wall, and put
my own there instead?"

"I do not know," said the councillor, shaking his head. "Let us first
see what has become of the beggar."

"So be it," said the king; and he and the councillor set off to see
whether the beggar had done as he ought to do with the good things that
the king had given him. So they came to the towngate, and there, lo and
behold! the first thing that they saw was the beggar with his wooden
bowl in his hand asking those who passed by for a stray penny or two.

When the king saw him he turned without a word, and rode back home
again. "Very well," said he to the chief councillor, "I have tried to
make the beggar rich and have failed; nevertheless, if I cannot make him
I can ruin him in spite of Fate, and that I will show you."

So all that while the beggar sat at the towngate and begged until came
noontide, when who should he see coming but the same three men who had
come for him the day before. "Ah, ha!" said he to himself, "now the
king is going to give me some more good things." And so when the three
reached him he was willing enough to go with them, rough as they were.

Off they marched; but this time they did not come to any garden with
fruit