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Clever fable about quick thinking [1]
['Mark Frauenfelder']
Date: 2025-06-02
Here's a short fable about a lawyer used quick thinking to save his career. From How to torture your mind; paradoxes, fallacies, dilemmas, figures, and word wonders by Ralph L. Woods (1969):
Two business partners placed $20,000 in the hands of a lawyer as custodian, with an ironclad understanding that the lawyer was to make no withdrawals from the fund without the signature of both partners.
When one of the partners then went off on a vacation, the other partner went to the lawyer and told him that a note for $15,000 was due and had to be paid immediately out of the fund. The custodian asked for the two required signatures. The partner said the other man could not be reached, but that the note must be paid immediately to stave off bankruptcy. Reluctantly, the lawyer handed the partner $15,000 for the payment of the note, whereupon he disappeared completely.
When the other partner returned home he instituted suit against the custodian for the $15,000 paid out of the fund. The lawyer explained the circumstances, and when the partner still insisted upon payment, the lawyer said, "I paid out the money for the note not from the partnership fund, but rather from my own funds."
"Then give me the fifteen thousand that you did not draw out of the fund," said the partner.
"All right," said the lawyer, "but you must produce the two signatures."
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