Once upon a time, there was
a builder who was very poor because there was
not much work. Then, one
day, a rich man came to see him.
“Will you build me a house?”
he asked.“I want it to be a very beautiful house and I don’t care how much it costs.
But you must use the very best building materials.”
The builder was absolutely
delighted. Now he would have work for many
months and he would be well
paid too. As he began ordering the building
materials, a thought
occurred to him. If he bought cheap materials, he would
pay less but still get the
full amount of money from the rich man. So he
decided to cheat.
The builder began, using
cheap bricks, poor cement and weak wood. He
mixed too much sand with the
cement thereby saving money on the price of
the cement. The wood for the
roof bent under the weight of the tiles and
there were gaps where the
rain could leak through. However, once the house
was completed, painted and
all the rubble cleared away, the house looked
much like any other. But the
builder knew that it would not be long before
the house began to crack and
fall down. He intended to be far away before
that happened and he was
pleased because he had cheated the rich man out of a great deal of money.
Then the owner came to
inspect his new home. “It looks beautiful,” he said to
the builder.“You keep the
keys. It’s your house. I wanted to do something
good with some of my money.
Congratulations!” The builder was very upset
but could not say anything.
If he had known the house was for him and that
he was working for himself,
he would not have cheated.
Moral of the story
If you cheat, you cheat yourself
and will eventually be caught out and your reputation damaged.
