Etam, a young man from a small town in Lailonia, plucks pears from a neighbor's tree for his friend Nita. He is branded with a red patch on his pants for the theft. It soon turns out that the patch is contagious. Red patches appear on the pants of all Etam's friends. The patches get bigger and the boys wear a big red patch instead of pants. So they decide to pretend that they have red pants. When they come to school, however, the Teacher sees red patches instead of pants. He tells them to return to school only when they have pants. The boys, on Nita's advice, make holes in the patches and sew the real colored patches onto them. To the boys' surprise, the Teacher at school accepts the patched pants. He explains to them that the previous day they had red patches, and now they have patched pants. This is because it is possible to patch pants, while patches cannot be patched.

Nino, a baker's apprentice from the kingdom of Lailonia, has a very beautiful face. He notices that wrinkles are appearing on it. He borrows money from the court and buys a trunk of immutability. He hides his beautiful face in the trunk and henceforth lives without a face. He claims that only by storing his face in the trunk of immutability can he ensure its eternal youth and immortal beauty. The neighbor demands the loan back. So Nino pawns his beautiful face in a pawnshop. He receives a sum less than he borrowed. He cannot repay the debt and is thrown in jail for many years. The owner of the pawnshop, not having lived to see Nino's return, takes his beautiful face out of his trunk and gives it to the children to play with as a ball. Only the imprisoned Nino thinks he has the most beautiful face in the world.