Once upon a time there was a printing press that set out into the wide world to seek her fortune. Instead of bread and pastries wrapped in a cloth, she packed good paper, ink, and all the other things she needed for printing money. “Perhaps I shall meet some poor souls who need my help,” she said to herself.
Towards evening she knocked at the door of the first house she came to—for it was a cool summer’s night—and called out: “Good evening! Have you enough money?”
A voice from behind the closed door replied: “We have not…”
So she printed a hundred thousand and passed it through to them, for one must always help the poor.
“Have you enough now?” she asked.
“We have not…” came the reply.
She printed another hundred thousand, and so the scene repeated itself.
“And now?” she asked.
“Not yet!”
This time she printed a million.
“?”
“No!”
A hundred million.
“Now?”
“No!”
A billion.
“Surely that is enough?”
“No, have you lost your senses? We need still more! And be quick about it!”
The poor press left in great sadness, with no sense that she had done any good at all. Yet wherever she wandered, she heard the very same words: “We have not enough! We need still more!” She roamed for many days—she could not even say how many—visiting royal palaces and the houses of merchants and great businessmen. But everywhere she heard: “You shall print for us from morning till night, four-and-twenty hours a day, seven days a week, for we need more money.” It was the words of kings and rulers that wounded her most deeply. Such distinguished men, she thought, and still not enough—what a sorry state of affairs.
With a heavy heart she sat down upon a dry old tree stump at the edge of a forest. Nearby there was a little spring. Presently a man of about forty years came to drink from it. He wore tattered clothes with a rope knotted about his waist, and his beard, though long, was neatly kept. From his pocket there peeped an old Bible and a crust of bread. He had come, it seemed, from a hermitage not far away. There was something most remarkable about him—in his every movement it was plain to see that he was a person of very noble spirit. He knelt by the spring, cupped the cool water gently in his hands, and drank.
The press gathered her courage and resolved to try her luck once more.
Wearily, yet with great courtesy, she asked: “Good day to you, sir. How much money shall I print for you?”
The man looked up and replied: “Good day to you. I have no need of money. Yet I thank you most kindly for your generous offer.”
The press had always known that such people existed somewhere in the world. She stepped back a little, out of respect, and a joy she had not felt in a very long time rose up quietly within her heart. And softly, almost to herself, she said: “At last—here is someone who is truly rich.”