Then, to set forth still more the Elder's goodness, he said,--"This is not the first time, Brethren, that the miserly Treasurer has been converted by Moggallana. In other days too the Elder converted him, and taught him how deeds and their effects are linked together." So saying, he told this story of the past.

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Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, there was a Treasurer, Illisa by name, who was worth eighty crores, and had all the defects which fall to the lot of man. He was lame and crook-backed and had a squint; he was an unconverted infidel, and a miser, never giving of his store to others, nor enjoying it himself; his house was like a pool haunted by demons. Yet, for seven generations, his ancestors had been bountiful, giving freely of their best; but, when he became Treasurer, he broke through the traditions of his house. Burning down the almonry and driving the poor with blows from his gates, he hoarded his wealth.

One day, when he was returning from attendance on the king, he saw a yokel, who had journeyed far and was a-weary, seated on a bench, and filling a mug from a jar of rank spirits, and drinking it off, with a dainty morsel of stinking dried-fish as a relish. The sight made the Treasurer feel a thirst for spirits, but he thought to himself, [350] "If I drink, others will want to drink with me, and that means a ruinous expense." So he walked about, keeping his thirst under. But, as time wore on, he could do so no longer; he grew as yellow as old cotton; and the veins stood out on his sunken frame. On a day, retiring to his chamber, he lay down hugging his bed. His wife came to him, and rubbed his back, as she asked, "What has gone amiss with my lord?"

(What follows is to be told in the words of the former story.) But, when she in her turn said, "Then I'll only brew liquor enough for you," he said, "If you make the brew in the house, there will be many on the watch; and to send out for the spirits and sit and drink it here, is out of the question." So he produced one single penny, and sent a slave to fetch him a jar of spirits from the tavern. When the slave came back, he made him go from the town to the riverside and put the jar down in a remote thicket. "Now be off!" said he, and made the slave wait some distance off, while he filled his cup and fell to.