Then the Priest ran out and caught the man who had sold him the grain.
"Tell me at once where you gathered this grain?" demanded he.
"From a cemetery," confessed the man.
After this the Priest sought the butcher, and said: "Where did you
get that meat you sold me? Did you kill the sheep?"
The butcher admitted that it was the flesh of a goat which had dropped
dead, and had not been killed.
Going back, the Priest resolved to catch the boys in their own net,
and he told them a story about two men and a thief.
"Now," said he, when he had finished, "which of the three do you
prefer?"
The eldest boy said he liked one man, and the second the other,
but the third preferred the thief!
"Well," said the Priest, "if you prefer the thief, you yourself must
be a thief. Where is the third ruby?"
On this the boy confessed that he had stolen it; and, taking it out of
his pocket, restored it to his brother. The three went home together,
and lived happily ever afterwards.