Two brothers lived in the same town — one rich, one poor.
After the festival of Sukkot, the poor brother walked through the neighborhood gathering up the etrogim that families had finished using. The citrons were still fragrant, still whole; the holiday was simply over and the households had no further use for them. He filled a sack. Then he bought passage on a ship bound for a distant country, hoping to sell them there and change his luck.
His fellow passengers laughed at him. Who sails across the sea to sell used fruit?
The ship landed at a city whose king was dying. Royal physicians had tried every treatment. Only one remedy remained — the scent of an etrog, rare in that country, unavailable at any market. The poor brother, alone on the ship, possessed a sack of them.
He was brought to the palace. He held the citrons beneath the king's nose. The king revived. The poor brother returned home with his ship rebuilt as a floating treasury.
He told his brother what had happened. The rich brother, envious, gathered an even bigger sack of etrogim and booked passage on the same route. But his ship foundered. He drowned at sea. All his property passed, by inheritance, to the poor brother.
Gaster's Exempla #368 preserves this tale. The poor brother had trusted in God enough to sail with discarded fruit. The rich brother trusted only in the success of imitating his brother. One ship landed. The other sank.