The Thief and the Magic Sticks

One morning a rich merchant came running into the court, his turban crooked and his face red. “Your Majesty! I have been robbed! A bag of gold has been stolen from my house in the night.”

“Do you suspect anyone?” asked the Emperor.

“It must be one of my servants. No stranger could have got past my dogs. But I have eight servants, and every one of them swears he is innocent.”

Akbar turned to Birbal. “Will you find the thief?”

Birbal went to the merchant’s house and asked for all eight servants to be lined up in the courtyard. They stood there looking nervous and offended, one after another. Then Birbal brought out a bundle of sticks. Every stick was cut to exactly the same length.

“These are magic sticks,” he announced. “Each of you will take one home tonight. By morning, the stick held by the thief will have grown exactly two inches longer than all the others. Bring your sticks back here at sunrise, and we shall see who the thief is.”

The servants took their sticks and went to bed.

But one of them could not sleep. He lay in the dark, staring at his stick. He was the thief, and he was terrified. If the stick really grew two inches in the night, he would be caught. Then he had an idea. He crept into the kitchen, took a knife, and very carefully cut two inches off the end of his stick. Now, he thought, when it grows, it will be just the right length. He went back to bed and slept soundly.

At sunrise the eight servants lined up again and held out their sticks. Birbal walked slowly along the line, comparing them. Seven of the sticks were exactly the same length. The eighth was two inches shorter.

Birbal stopped in front of the eighth servant. “Here is your thief,” he said.

The servant went pale. “But my stick didn’t grow!”

“Of course not. None of them grew. They are ordinary sticks. But only a guilty man would be afraid that his stick might grow, and only a guilty man would cut it shorter.”

The servant fell to his knees and confessed. The bag of gold was found hidden under his mattress, and the merchant was so grateful that he gave Birbal a share of it.

When Akbar heard the story, he laughed. “So the magic was not in the sticks at all.”

“No, Your Majesty,” said Birbal. “The magic was in the thief’s own guilty conscience.”