Once upon a time, there was a poor Greek village where everyone was in debt to each other.
A rich German arrived at the local hotel and, as a deposit on a room, put down a 100-euro note.
Smiling broadly, the hotelier grabbed the note and ran next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher used the note to pay his supplier — who rushed to the taverna and paid his bar bill.
The publican slipped the note to a local girl for services previously rendered, and she took it back to the hotel to pay what she owed for room hire…
but as she put the note on the counter, the German appeared,
said he’d decided not to stay after all,
picked up the note
and left.
And that’s how a bail-out works…
(With thanks to a good client for sharing this enlightening tale)
Definition of Apocryphal