Der kluge Richter, the wise judge, is one of Johann Peter Hebel’s calendar stories. It appears in his Schatzkästlein des rheinischen Hausfreundes of 1811, and it still appears in school materials. A rich man loses a cloth with money sewn into it. He promises the honest finder a reward of one hundred thalers. A good and honest man finds the money and brings it back. Now the rich man looks for a way to cheat the finder out of the reward. He claims that there were really eight hundred thalers in the cloth, so the finder must already have taken his hundred. The judge accepts the claim as stated. If eight hundred were lost, this cannot be the same money. The finder takes the money home and keeps it safe. The rich man must wait until someone finds his eight hundred thalers. So sprach der Richter, und dabei blieb es. So spoke the judge, and that is how it stayed.