Then they set him to filling the trough, and he found that he could not do that either, for the trough had a hole in the bottom and had been set over the mouth of an old well; and as fast as the prince poured the water in, it ran away, but he was too stupid to see what was the matter and went on pouring till he was quite tired out; so as he had not completed the tasks set him, he only got a tamarind leaf full of rice for his supper; this went on every day and the prince began to starve, but he was afraid to run away and tell his troubles to the merchant’s son, lest he should have his little finger cut off.

But the merchant’s son had not forgotten his friend and began to wonder why the Prince kept away from him.  So one day he went to pay him a visit and was horrified to find him looking so ill and starved; when he heard how the prince was only getting a tamarind leaf full of rice every day, because he could not perform the task set him, he offered to change places with the Prince and sent him off to teach in the school while he himself stayed with the farmer.  The next morning the merchant’s son took the bullock out to graze and he also found that the animal would not graze quietly but spent its time in chasing the other cattle, so at noon he brought it home and set to work to fill the trough; he soon found the hole in the bottom through which the water escaped and stopped it up with a lump of clay and then he easily filled the trough to the brim.  Then in the afternoon he took the bullock out again to graze and when he brought it back at sunset he was given a plantain leaf full of rice; this meant more food than he could possibly eat in a day.

He was determined that the bullock should not give him any more trouble, so the next morning when he took it out to graze, he took with him a thick rope and tethered the animal to a tree; this saved him all the trouble of running after it, but it was clear that it would not get enough to eat in that way, so he made up his mind to get rid of it altogether, and when he took it out in the afternoon, he took with him a small axe and drove the bullock to a place where a herd of cattle were grazing and then knocked it on the head with the axe and threw the body into a ravine near by.  Then he hid the axe and ran off to his master and told him that the bullock had started fighting with another animal in the herd and had been pushed over the edge of the ravine and killed by the fall.  The farmer went out to see for himself and when he found the dead body lying in the ravine he could not but believe the story, and had no fault to find with his cunning servant.

A few days later, as the rice crop was ripe, the farmer told the merchant’s son to go to the fields to reap the rice.  “How shall I reap it?” asked he.  “With a sickle,” replied the farmer.  “Then it will be the the sickle and not I, that reaps it” “As you like,” said the farmer, “you go along with the sickle, no doubt it knows all about it;” so they got