How Maisel Came by His Wealth

The wealthy Jewish elder Yitzhak once saw two dwarfs in the forest beside an enormous heap of money. They let him exchange three gold pieces and told him that this money would come to one of his own people when his daughter married. At home he pondered who the lucky man might be, and it occurred to him to drop a gold coin in the street. A poor boy picked it up, and on the second and third day gathered the others as well. The elder had it announced that he had lost three ducats, and the lad — it was Mordecai Maisel — came forward. The elder guessed that great wealth was fated for this poor boy, took him into his house and years later gave him his daughter too. After the wedding he went with him to that forest, but in vain; he never saw the money again. In his vexation he all but drove his son-in-law and his daughter out of the house. But Maisel set up a trade in iron and soon grew rich. One day an unknown peasant from the country took tools from him on credit and left him as a pledge an iron chest which, he said, he could not open. Yet scarcely had Maisel touched the chest when the lid sprang open of itself — and a great deal of money lay inside. The peasant never came back for the chest, and the money stayed with Maisel. Elsewhere it is told that he found a treasure in his cellar. That his father-in-law was reconciled to him once he was rich goes without saying.