The Glass Cupboard

There was a king who had a cupboard that was made entirely of glass. It was a special cupboard. It looked empty, but you could always take out anything you wanted. There was only one thing you had to remember. Whenever you took something out of it, you had to put something else back in, although nobody knew why.

One day some thieves broke into the palace and stole the cupboard. “Now we can have anything we want,” they said. One of the thieves said, “I want a large bag of gold,” and he opened the glass cupboard and got it. The other two did the same and they too got exactly what they wanted. The thieves forgot one thing. Not one of them put anything back in the cupboard.

They went on and on for weeks and months. At last, the leader of the thieves could bear it no longer. He took a hammer and smashed the glass cupboard into a million pieces, and then all three fell down dead.

When the king returned home, he ordered his servants to search for the cupboard. When they found it and the dead thieves, they filled sixty great carts with the gold and took it back to the king. He said, “If those thieves had only put something back into the cupboard, they would be alive this day.”

He ordered his servants to collect all the pieces of glass and melt them down and make them into a globe with all the countries of the world upon it, to remind himself and others, to give back something in return when someone or something does or gives us something.

What did the thieves take out of the cupboard?