and the owners have lost; I keep the Kuru righteousness; and now here's a flaw!" So he told this to the messengers, adding that therefore he had his doubts about it, and could not give it to them. But the messengers said, "You had no thought of theft, and without this no one can be declared guilty of dishonesty. If you feel scruples in a small matter like this, when would you ever steal any thing belonging to another?" And from him too they received the righteousness, and wrote it on their golden plate. "But," added he, "although this virtue is not perfect in me, there is the gatekeeper, who observes it well: go and get it from him." So they went off and asked the gatekeeper.

Now it so happened that one day, at the time for closing the city gate, he cried aloud three times. And a certain poor man, who had gone into the woodland a-gathering sticks and leaves with his youngest sister, hearing the sound came running up with her. Says the door keeper--"What! don't you know that the king is in the city'? Don't you know that the gate of this town is shut betimes? Is that why you go out into the woods, making love?" Said the other, "No, master, it is not my wife, but my sister." Then the porter thought, "How unseemly to address a sister as a wife! And I keep the rules of the Kurus; surely I must have broken them now!" This he told the messengers, adding, "In this way I have my doubts whether I really keep the Kuru righteousness, and so I cannot give it to you." But they said, "You said it because you thought so; [380] this does not break your virtue. If you feel remorse on so slight a cause, how could you ever tell a lie with intent?" And so they took down those virtues from him too, and wrote them on their golden plate.