“It shall,” cried the young man; “never again will I be so foolish as I have been!” And thereupon he went his way with another pocketful of good resolves.
The first thing he did when he reached home was to try the virtue of his jar. “I should like,” said he, “to have a handful of just such treasure as I brought from the cavern over yonder.” He dipped his hand into the jar, and when he brought it out again it was brimful of shining, gleaming, sparkling jewels. You can guess how he felt when he saw them.
Well, this time a whole year went by, during which the young man lived as soberly as a judge. But at the end of the twelvemonth he was so sick of wisdom that he loathed it as one loathes bitter drink. Then by little and little he began to take up with his old ways again, and to call his old cronies around, until at the end of another twelvemonth things were a hundred times worse and wilder than ever; for now what he had he had without end.
One day, when he and a great party of roisterers were shouting and making merry, he brought out his earthen-ware pot to show them the wonders of it; and to prove its virtue he gave to each guest whatever he wanted. “What will you have?”--“A handful of gold.”--“Put your hand in and get it!”--“What will you have?”--“A fistful of pearls.”--“Put your fist in and get them!”--“What will you have?”--“A necklace of diamonds.”--“Dip into the jar and get it.” And so he went from one to another, and each and every one got what he asked for, and such a shouting and hubbub those walls had never heard before.
Then the young man, holding the jar in his hands, began to dance and to sing: “O wonderful jar! O beautiful jar! O beloved jar!” and so on, his friends clapping their hands, and laughing and cheering him. At last, in the height of his folly, he balanced the earthen jar on his head, and began dancing around and around with it to show his dexterity.
Smash! crash! The precious jar lay in fifty pieces of the stone floor, and the young man stood staring at the result of his folly with bulging eyes, while his friends roared and laughed and shouted louder than ever over his mishap. And again his treasure and his gay life were gone.
But what had been hard for him to do before was easier now. At the end of a week he was back at the old man’s house, rapping on the door. This time the old man asked him never a word, but frowned as black as thunder.