There was a farmer who fell in with thieves. Brothers those thieves were, Haimet and Barat, and wise in the ways of their trade. Now, it happened that one day the three, Haimet and Barat and Farmer Travers, were passing through a wood when Haimet saw a bird on her nest.

To prove himself a master thief, Haimet replaced the stolen egg beneath the bird. But his brother got the best of him, stealing the breeches right off his legs!

“Watch how fine a thief I am!” he boasted. Climbing slyly up the tree, he just as slyly stole the eggs right out from under the mother bird without her stirring a feather.

“Too easily done!” taunted Barat. “A true thief could not only steal away the eggs but replace them in the nest.”

So Haimet, smarting from his brother’s jibe, climbed the tree, slid the eggs under the nesting bird, and came back down again. “So now who’s the finest thief?”

“Not you, dear brother!” Barat laughed. “Look down at yourself.” For while Haimet had been returning the eggs to the nest, Barat had stolen the breeches right off his legs!

When Farmer Travers saw this, his heart failed him. I can never be a thief as fine as this pair, he told himself, and slunk away home to wife and farm.