Once ten boys from a village went to see a fair in another village across a small river. They all crossed the river together. Upon reaching the other bank, they thought of recounting whether all of them have reached safely. One of them counted and found only nine present, he looked worried. Then another one rechecked and again found one of them missing; this confirmed the first one's counting and he starting weeping. This way each one of them counted the number present as nine missing one friend. In great panic they all sat there, crying about what will happen now, how would they go back without the "missing" friend?

After sometime, a wise man happened to pass from there. He asked them what had happened and why were they crying? They told him that they had counted very carefully everybody but still one of them is missing. He asked them "How many were you when you started from your house?" They replied "Ten". He counted them and laughed heartily at their folly.

He thought to teach them a lesson, so he made them stand in a row and thrashed a slap on their faces one after the other with loud counting "one, two, three, four...", successively, until he slapped the tenth boy. As soon the boys heard the count "ten" they  took a sigh of relief and got so happy to find their missing friend that they thanked him a million times and went their way.