Away went the squire to the hermitage, and looked, and found his money gone. Running back to the Bodhisatta, he cried, "It's not there." "The thief is none other than that long-haired rascal of an ascetic," said the Bodhisatta; "let us pursue and catch him." So away they hastened in hot pursuit. When they caught the rascal they kicked and cuffed him, till he discovered to them where he had hidden the money. When he procured the gold, the Bodhisatta, looking at it, scornfully remarked to the ascetic, "So a hundred pieces of gold didn't trouble your conscience so much as that straw!" And he rebuked him in this stanza:--

How plausible the story that the rascal told!
How heedful of the straw! How heedless of the gold!

[377] When the Bodhisatta had rebuked the fellow in this wise, he added,--"And now take care, you hypocrite, that you don't play such a trick again." When his life ended, the Bodhisatta passed away to fare thereafter according to his deserts.

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His lesson ended, the Master said, "Thus you see, Brethren, that this Brother was as knavish in the past as he is to-day." And he identified the Birth by saying, "This knavish Brother was the knavish ascetic of those days, and I the wise and good man."

Footnotes

^218:1 No. 487.

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