‘THOSE two handfuls of gram flour I sold at the roadside with a pitcher of water to a team of woodcutters, in exchange for two logs. The two logs I sold for rather more gram flour, and bought rather more logs. After three days of this there was a tremendous rainstorm which forced the woodcutters to stop work, and in the dearth I made a fine profit from my logs, enough to start a little shop.
‘My shop has done very well, and now I am very wealthy, but I have never forgotten Vishakhila. In fact, I sent him a present: a mouse made of gold. Vishakhila was so pleased with it that he gave me his daughter in marriage. Now everyone knows my story, and they all call me Mouse.’*
* But see the Aesop’s fable The Country Milkmaid, in which one young lady finds that an ambitious entrepreneur’s dreams don’t always work out.