Thursday 6 November 2014

Many years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the
misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the moneylender.
The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the
merchant's beautiful daughter so he proposed a bargain. He
said he would forgo the merchant's debt if he could marry
the merchant's daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter
were horrified by the proposal. The cunning money lender
suggested that they let providence decide the matter.

The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble
and a white pebble into a bag. The girl would then pick one
pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she
would become the moneylender's wife and her father's debt
would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble her
father's debt would still be forgiven but she would not have
to marry the moneylender. But if she refused the deal, the
moneylender would report to the authorities and her father
would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the merchant's
garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up
two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl
noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them
into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick her pebble from
the bag.

What would you have done?

1. Refuse to take a pebble.

2. Show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and
expose the moneylender as a cheat.

3. Pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself to save her
father from his debt and imprisonment.

The answer: None of the above. The girl put her hand into the
bag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled
and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it
immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look
into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to
tell which pebble I picked."

No comments:

Post a Comment