Page:An argosy of fables.djvu/243

 Rh "Why don't you listen to what I am saying?" asked Vinakarna.

"I am listening," replied his friend. "But there is a plaguey little Mouse that is always trying to steal my dinner from my begging-dish."

Vinakarna looked up at the shelf and said, "How can a Mouse jump as high as this? No ordinary Mouse could jump so high. There must be some good reason why this Mouse is so strong and active, though there would not seem to be any."

Presently, after silent meditation, Vinakarna continued:

"I think I understand. This is a very fat and prosperous Mouse; he must have hidden treasure. For everywhere in the world it is the prosperous and wealthy who are strong and rule others like kings. Let us seek and see if we cannot find this Mouse's treasure."

The two friends procured a spade, found the mouse-hole and dug open Golden-Skin's secret hiding place, until they found his store of provisions, which they took away. After that, Golden-Skin being no longer able to eat regularly, but only when the beggar Priest was asleep, lost strength day by day, until he could no longer jump high enough to reach the shelf where the begging-dish stood. Before long he had scarcely energy enough to seek for his dinner at all, and crept about so miserably, looking for crumbs, that one day Chudakarna easily hit him over the head with his split bamboo cane.

(Hitopadeça. Book I. Fable 4. Adapted from translation by Sir Edwin Arnold.)

THE DEATH OF THE GREEDY JACKAL

NCE in a town, called Happy Home, there lived a mighty Hunter, named Grim-Face. One day, wishing a little fresh venison for dinner, he took his bow and arrows and went into the