Show THE GOLDEN BALL PY SIMON T STERN When the sons of King Beneficent were very young they went to school the Wlxard Wlseman acting as their teacher One spring day he called the three young Princes to his cell and spoke to them as follows Prlncey I give you greeting I want each of you to write a poem t To the one who writes the best original origi-nal poem by tomorrow r shall give this golden ball and he held out a splendid splen-did golden ball that sparkled In the sunlight S The youngest Prince Richard went aUonce lo his room and started in to write for he was very anxious to win the splendid trophy His brothers saw and hooted him Work away you grind said they derisively Writing poetry is a talent not drudgery drudg-ery Ve shall not work half us hard and I dare say our poems shall be twice as good Hut Richard said nothing and continued his work S John and James were quite as eager as ho to gain the golden ball this time they were not only rivals to Richard but to each other John went at once to his room and James to his Each of them luul already concocted a plan and they were Impatient to start As soon as James reached the room he bolted the door on the Inside I Then lit opened a secret door that led from his room to his fathers library He walked oftly along the passageway until he reached the library Once there t ho look down from the topmost shelf the oldest volume of poetry he could find Nobody will ever know said 1 he to himself and I must win that golden hull He copied a poem and replaced the book Then ho went back to his room That night the other Prince John 1 i went Into the library He too took down a book He too copied a poem I Then exulting In his own shrewdness he went hack to his room I The next day they all handed In their work and awaited the Wizards decision I 11 was four days before he sent for them themRichard said he to the youngest Prince your poom Is not nearly as good as the I other two S I did my best said Richard More than that you can ask of no man Quite so said the Wlxard Wise man As for your brothers poems they are germ anti so evenly balanced In merit that I cannot choose between them Both are very very line Do not trouble yourself further < said John and James overjoyed we do not care You can hestow on us time prize In common S LI said nothing about the prize rejoined re-joined the Wizard 1 merely said that both of your poems were very 1 very llnei They ought to be uiey ware written by ono of our most Illustrious poets You copied your John you copied yoursi J James nm the funniest part of It Is that you both copied the same poem There they are word for word alike So Richard got Ihe prize after ill Boys said the Wizard as he g1o S the golden ball to the youngest Prince It Is a line tiling to he clever but the mun who Is too clever oflcn overreaches over-reaches himself And John and Tames ruefully lookfrl up the word overreach In their dictionaries dic-tionaries and said they gucss < rd hn was right S |