out. 'I'll tell you,' said his father's oldest friend. 'Mr. John o'
Scales gives a great dinner party once a month, and three of us here
are invited as usual. You must come in in the middle of dinner in
your ordinary beggar clothes and beg humbly for some food, when he
will give orders to have you turned out. Then you must begin to call
him a liar and a thief, and accuse him of robbing your father and
yourself of your inheritance. You'll see he'll get angry, and offer
to let you have it back.'

"So the prodigal dug up the chests, and carted the money away in
canvas bags, storing it at his friend's house."

* * * * *

"When the night of the dinner party came, the prodigal drove up to
the castle in a cart filled with canvas bags. Jumping off his seat
by the driver, he went into the feast in his beggar's clothes, and
going up to the host, he begged humbly for some food.

"'Go from this house! What business have you here?' asked the host.

"Most of the gentlemen and ladies began to frown upon him, and
murmur against him, as he walked to the lady of the house and begged
her to give him some food, but she replied:

"'Oh, thou spendthrift! thou fool of fools! if all fools were
hanged, as they ought to be, you'd be the first.'

"Then the beggar's countenance changed, a deep flush of anger
overspread his features, and drawing himself up to his full height,