A beggar found a leather purse that someone had dropped in the marketplace. Opening it, he discovered that it contained 100 pieces of gold. Then he heard a merchant shout, “A reward! A reward to the one who finds my leather purse!”
Being an honest man, the beggar came forward and handed the purse to the merchant saying, “Here is your purse. May I have the reward now?”
“Reward?” scoffed the merchant, greedily counting his gold. “Why, the purse I dropped had 200 pieces of gold in it. You've already stolen more than the reward! Go away or I'll tell the police.”
“I'm an honest man,” said the beggar defiantly , “Let us take this matter to the court.”
In court the judge patiently listened to both sides of the story and said, “I believe you both. Justice is possible! Merchant, you stated that the purse you lost contained 200 pieces of gold. Well, that's a considerable cost. But, the purse this beggar found had only 100 pieces of gold. Therefore, it couldn't be the one you lost.”
And, with that, the judge gave the purse and all the gold to the beggar.
有人在集市丢了一个皮钱包，一个乞丐捡到了。他打开一看，里面有100个金币。这时，他听到一个买卖人喊到：“悬赏！悬赏！谁找到我的皮钱包，我重重有赏！”
乞丐是个老实人，他走上前去把钱包交给生意人，说：“我捡到了你的钱包，现在请把赏钱给我吧。”
“赏钱？”生意人一边贪婪地数着金子，一边嘲弄道。“我说，我丢钱包的时候，里面还有200个金币，分明是你偷了金币，还敢问我要赏钱！快滚，不然我就报警了！”
“我这人向来老实本分。”乞丐不服气地说，“咱们上法庭评评理吧。”
法庭上，法官耐心听完两方的陈述，说：“你俩说的话我都信。司法是公正的！做买卖的，你说你丢的钱包里面有200块金币，那可不是笔小数目啊。可这要饭的捡到的钱包里只有100块金币，那说明他捡的就不是你丢的那个钱包。”
说完，法官把钱包和所有金币全部判给了乞丐。
-scoff [skɒf] v. 嘲弄
-defiantly [dɪˈfaɪəntlɪ] adv. 大胆对抗地
圣雄甘地(Mahatma Gandhi)认为：“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”(地球提供给我们的物质财富足以满足每个人的需求，但不足以满足每个人的贪欲。)