In the latter example, a wise man presents his king with a chessboard and asks, in return, that the king give him a grain of rice for the first square of the board, two grains of rice for the second square, four grains of rice for the third square, eight grains of rice for the fourth square, etc. The king agrees only to find that, long before the sixty-fourth square is reached, he has to turn over his entire store of grain to the wise man.