The Honest Young Man of Sumanpur

The King of Sumanpur needed an officer to collect taxes from the residents of a distant area and bring them to the royal treasury.

“We need a man who will be honest and young. The frontier area is a tough place, and an elderly officer may not be able to travel to the capital frequently,” said the minister.

“You can find many young men, but how do we know who is honest?” asked the King.

“We will find that out as well,” the minister replied confidently.

The minister called five eligible young men to meet him while he sat inside a certain old building. There was a dark passage leading to the courtyard where he waited. The young men were sent in one by one by the guard. When they all had arrived, the minister asked them if they would agree to run around him ten or twelve times. Only one young man, named Suresh, was willing to do so.

The minister led Suresh to the King and said, “Kindly appoint this young man to the post.”

What the minister had done was clever: in the dark passage, he had thrown four or five dazzling coins each time a candidate entered. Each of the candidates picked them up, but Suresh did not. He remained uninterested in the coins, which is why the others were reluctant to run; they feared the coins in their pockets would jingle and reveal their dishonesty.