Once there was an old man. He liked very much to hear lies. “If anyone could tell me the most wonderful lie in the world, he could marry my only daughter,” the old man said.
So many people from different places came to the old man and told him a lot of lies. But every time the old man would try his best to show that the lie might have been true in some ways. He always said, “It’s not a good lie. I would not give my daughter to you.”
One day a young man came to the old man. The young man took out an old piece of paper from his handbag and said, “Your father borrowed one million dollars from my grandpa before he died. He wrote this for my grandpa and told us to take back the money from you.”
The old man looked at the piece of paper and on it he could see some words:“Dear Mr. Blien, I have borrowed one million dollars from you but I’m not able to pay it back.. Ask my son or my grandson to pay you the money some day after my death.”
Now the old man didn’t know what to do. “If I say it’s a lie, I must give him my daughter,” he thought for himself, “But if I say it’s not a lie, I must pay him the money.”
In the end he said, “It’s a lie, a well-made lie.” So the young man married the old man’s daughter.