Once upon a time there was a merchant who had accumulated a lot of wealth in his lifetime by cheating his customers and employees. He was a miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden. Every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains.A robber, who had noticed this, entered the garden one night and dug up the gold and ran off with it. When the miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but an empty hole. He tore his hair and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him. He told them how he used to come and visit his gold.
"Did you ever take any of the gold out?" asked one of the neighbours.
"No, replied the miser, "I only came to look at it."
"Then come again and look at the hole," said another neighbour; "it will do you just as much good."
The neighbour was right. After all: Wealth unused might as well not exist!
