The coin purse
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When Thomas's grandfather died, he left him only one possession: a small leather coin purse, worn smooth with age.
"It isn't much," the old man's note read, "but use it wisely."
Curious, Thomas slipped two fingers inside the purse. When he pulled them out, a silver coin lay between them.
He blinked. He reached in again.
Another coin.
And another.
The purse was enchanted. Every time he put his fingers inside, he withdrew a coin.
At first, Thomas was careful. He paid off debts, repaired his home, and helped friends in need. But soon he realized the purse had no limit.
Why work when money appeared at his fingertips?
He quit his job.
Why save when wealth was endless?
He spent lavishly on fine clothes, expensive food, and extravagant parties. He bought horses, then carriages, then entire estates. People flocked to him, praising his generosity and seeking his favor.
Yet the more coins he produced, the less each coin seemed worth. Merchants noticed that silver had become strangely abundant. Prices rose. The value of money fell. Thomas simply pulled more coins from the purse to compensate.
Years passed.
His friends became dependents. His businesses failed because he never bothered to manage them. His skills withered from disuse. Every problem seemed solvable with another handful of coins.
Then one morning, as he reached into the purse, he felt something unexpected.
The coin he withdrew was thin and dull.
The next was worse.
Soon the coins crumbled into flakes of worthless metal.
Panicked, Thomas emptied the purse. Hundreds of brittle coins spilled onto the floor, disintegrating into dust.
At the very bottom he found a second note, hidden beneath the lining.
"The purse does not create wealth," it read. "It exchanges it. Each coin comes from the future value of the hand that draws it."
Thomas stared at his trembling fingers.
The purse had not been generating money at all. It had been converting his future labor, discipline, reputation, and opportunities into coins today. Every easy coin had stolen a little of the capable man he might have become.
Now there was nothing left to exchange.
His estates were mortgaged. His servants had departed. The friends who loved his money vanished when it disappeared. Worse still, Thomas no longer knew how to earn a living. Decades of dependence had left him unskilled and unprepared.
He sold the empty purse for a loaf of bread.
In his old age, he lived in a tiny rented room above a baker's shop, sweeping floors for a few coppers a day. Sometimes people spoke of the fabulously rich Thomas who had squandered a fortune beyond imagining.
They never knew the truth.
Thomas had inherited infinite coins, yet died poorer than the day he received the purse—because he had spent not money, but himself.