[SirFozzie]

Here's a puzzle.

This story takes place in the early 1700's. It seems that the man known far and wide as the world's greatest thief was spotted in the city of London. He had never been tied to a specific theft.. but some of the greatest treasures of the day had disappeared while he was in town. The King, upset that his best men had never caught the thief in the act, so he can be hung, asked one of his knights to watch the thief every time he left the city, and if he found so much as a pfennig that he couldn't account for, to arrest him.

Well.. the knight travels to London, and meets the thief as he's heading out the gate of London with a wheelbarrow full of hay. "I have you now, you scoundrel! Stop and be searched!"

The thief turns to the knight and grins.. "Of cours, noble Sir. I am a loyal subject of his Majesty. I know you have heard the awful rumors about my past. I am but a poor farmer, but I am honest!".

The knight tears through the hay, and finds nothing. He then searches the man and finds nothing. He growls, and asks the thief what his latest heist had been. But the man again just responds he's getting hay for his farm. Very upset, but unable to pin anything on the man (especially with others watching them), the knight sends him on his way.

Over the next year, the knight stops the man 30 more times. Each time he tears the hay out of the wheelbarow the man is pushing. Each time he searches the man, and each time, there is nothing.

The knight finally gives up when the thief leaves the city one last time and disappears into the countryside.

Years later, the two meet in an inn. The clearly frustrated knight Exclaims. "I Don't understand it. You were rumored to be the greatest thief of all time, but I swear I searched you 30 times, and you were clean each time.. I would give ANYTHING to learn your secret."

The man perks up at this.. "Anything.. including a pardon for any and all things I may have done in my youth?"

The knight growls, but his curiosity is too strong, and he writes out a writ of pardon, against his authority under the King.. and the thief tells him his secret. What was the thief's secret?