A melon farmer’s crop of melons was disappearing fast from his field. Thieves were continually stealing the melons under the cover of night’s darkness. The farmer finally became desperate and in an attempt to save his crop from the vandals he decided to put up a sign.

The sign had on it a skull and crossbones, and it read: “one of these melons is poisoned”—only the farmer knew that it was not true.

Sure enough, for two nights not a melon was missing. But, after the third night, the farmer noticed that his sign had been altered. Someone had scratched out the word “one” and replaced it with another word so that the sign now read: “two of these melons are poisoned.”

Thinking to save his whole crop through deception, he lost it all, which just goes to illustrate Sir Walter Scott’s observation:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!