Three men, who were once travelling together, found a large sum of money on the road. To avoid being seen, they went into the woods near by, to count out the money, and divide it among themselves. They were not far from a village, and as they had eaten up all their food, they concluded to send one of their number, the youngest of the company, into the village to buy some more food, while they would wait there till he came back.
He started on his journey. While walking to the village, he talked to himself in this way: —” How rich my share of this money has made me! But how much richer I should be if I only had it all! And why can’t I have it? It is easy enough to get rid of those other two men. I can get some poison in the village, and put it into their food. On my return I can say that I had my dinner in the village, and don’t want to eat any more. Then they will eat the food, and die, and so I shall have all this money instead of only having one third of it.”
But while he was talking to himself in this way, his two companions were making a different arrangement. They said to each other, “It is not necessary that this young man should be connected with us. If he was out of the way, we could each have the half of this money instead of only a third. Let us kill him as soon as he comes back.” So they got their daggers ready, and as soon as the young man came back they plunged their daggers into him and killed him.
They then buried his dead body, and sat down to eat their dinner of the poisoned food which had been brought to them. They had hardly finished their dinner before they were both seized with dreadful pains, which soon ended in their death. And here we see how the happiness, and the lives of those three men were destroyed by the love of money.
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