Presently he said; “It is not fit that a man who lives in his own house, and has ready money in his pocket too, should spend the whole day in labouring with his hands.  Since by good luck I can read, it would be well that I should borrow a book from the professor, for study is an occupation suitable to my present position.”

Accordingly, he went to the professor, whom he found seated in his library, and preferred his request.

“What book do you want?” asked the professor.

The cobbler stood and scratched his head thoughtfully.  The professor thought that he was trying to recall the name of the work; but in reality he was saying to himself:  “How much additional knowledge one requires if he has risen ever so little in life!  Now, if I did but know where it is proper to begin in a case full of books like this!  Should one take the first on the top shelf, or the bottom shelf, to the left, or to the right?”

At last he resolved to choose the book nearest to him; so drawing it out from the rest, he answered—­

“This one, if it please you, learned sir.”  The professor lent it to him, and he took it home and began to read.

It was, as it happened, a book about ghosts and apparitions; and the cobbler’s mind was soon so full of these marvels that he could talk of nothing else, and hardly did a stroke of work for reading and pondering over what he read.  He could find none of his neighbours who had seen a ghost, though most had heard of such things, and many believed in them.

“Live and learn,” thought the cobbler; “here is fame as well as wealth.  If I could but see a ghost there would be no more to desire.”  And with this intent he sallied forth late one night to the churchyard.

Meanwhile a thief (who had heard the jingle of his money-bag) resolved to profit by the cobbler’s whim; so wrapping himself in a sheet, he laid wait for him in a field that he must cross to reach the church.

When the cobbler saw the white figure, he made sure, that he had now seen a ghost, and already felt proud of his own acquaintance, as a remarkable character.  Meanwhile, the thief stood quite still, and the cobbler walked boldly up to him, expecting that the phantom would either vanish or prove so impalpable that he could pass through it as through a mist, of which he had read many notable instances in the professor’s book.  He soon found out his mistake, however, for the supposed ghost grappled him, and without loss of time relieved him of his money-bag.  The cobbler (who was not wanting in courage) fastened as tightly on to the sheet, which he still held with desperate firmness when the thief had slipped through his fingers; and after waiting in vain for further marvels, he carried the sheet home to his mother, and narrated his encounter with the ghost.

“Alack-a-day! that I should have a son with so little wit!” cried the old woman; “it was no ghost, but a thief, who is now making merry with all the money we possessed.”