A man in a certain town buried a sum of money in his garden for safekeeping. He thought no one had seen. He was wrong. His neighbor, watching through a gap in the wall, waited a day and then dug up the hoard and carried it home.
When the owner came out the next morning and found the hole empty, he understood at once who must have done it. But he had no proof. He could not accuse without evidence, and evidence was precisely what he did not have. So he did something clever.
He walked over to his neighbor's house and made conversation. After a while, he said, as if confiding: "You know, I had some money I buried in the garden. I have more now, and I was thinking of burying it in the same place. Do you think that is wise? Is it a good hiding spot?"
The neighbor's mind raced. If the owner buried a second hoard and then discovered the first one was gone, he would know immediately that a thief had been watching. The neighbor would be exposed. There was only one way to protect himself: put the first stash back, so that when the owner dug again, he would find the original money still there and conclude the garden was safe.
That night the neighbor crept out, carried the stolen silver back, and reburied it exactly where he had found it. The owner, watching from his own window, waited until the neighbor was gone. Then he went out, dug up his money, and took it inside his house.
Gaster's Exempla (no. 324, 1924) preserves this story because it catches the rabbinic delight in wisdom against thieves. Sometimes, the tradition is saying, the cleverness of the yetzer tov is a match for the cleverness of the yetzer hara — and the man with patience wins.