There was a tradesman, a painter called
Harry, who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often would thin
down paint to make it go a wee bit further. As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually a
church decided to do a big restoration job on the painting of one of their biggest
churches.
Harry put in a bid and, because his price
was so low, he got the job.
And so he set to erecting the trestles and
setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down
with the turpentine.
Well, Harry was up on the scaffolding,
painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of
thunder, and the sky opened, the rain poured down, washing the thinned paint from all over
the church and knocking Harry clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn, among the
gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.
Harry was no fool. He knew this was a
judgment from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: "Oh God! Forgive me!
What should I do?" And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke...
"Repaint! Repaint! And thin no
more!"
