The Miser and His Gold

英语自学网

The Miser and His Gold
        Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold
        at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go
        and dig it up and gloat over his gains.  A robber, who had noticed
        this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it.  When the
        Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but
        the empty hole.  He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that
        all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used
        to come and visit his gold.  "Did you ever take any of it out?"
        asked one of them.
          "Nay," said he, "I only came to look at it."
          "Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour; "it
        will do you just as much good."
       
        Wealth unused might as well not exist.