‘How extraordinary!' answered the thief. ‘I have just come from a
country where the crops were so fine that I saw twelve barrels of
beer made out of one branch of hops.'

‘I bet you three hundred florins that is not true,' answered the
king.

‘And I bet you three hundred florins it is true,' replied the
thief.

Then each staked his three hundred florins, and the king said he
would decide the question by sending a servant into that country
to see if it was true.

So the servant set out on horseback, and on the way he met a man,
and he asked him whence he came. And the man told him that he
came from the self-same country to which the servant was at that
moment bound.

‘If that is the case,' said the servant, ‘you can tell me how
high the hops grow in your country, and how many barrels of beer
can be brewed from one branch?'

‘I can't tell you that,' answered the man, ‘but I happened to be
present when the hops were being gathered in, and I saw that it
took three men with axes three days to cut down one branch.'

Then the servant thought that he might save himself a long
journey; so he gave the man ten florins, and told him he must