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 404 "Don't worry about me," replied the Pike, "Catching mice is mere play to any one who is used to catching minnows!"

"Oh, very well, we shall see! Come along," said the Cat.

So the two friends went together to the warehouse, and lay in wait, each in front of a separate mouse-hole. The Cat had great luck in her hunting, and after enjoying a hearty mouse dinner, went to see what sort of sport her friend had had. Alas, the poor Pike lay flat on the ware-room floor, feebly gasping for breath, and with its tail half nibbled away by the mice. So the Cat, seeing that her friend had undertaken a task beyond his strength, dragged him back to the edge of the pond, and flung him, half dead, into his native water.

(Krilov, Fables. Adapted from the translation by William R. S. Ralston.)

THE ASS AND THE NIGHTINGALE

N Ass, happening one day to meet a Nightingale, said to her: 'Listen, my dear, they tell me that you really have a wonderful voice, and for a long time I have wanted to hear you sing, and to judge for myself whether you are as great an artist as they say."

At this the Nightingale began to display her art, whistling in countless ways, with long-drawn, sobbing notes, and passing from one song to another. At one time she let her voice die away until it was like the distant echo of the wind among the reeds; at another, she poured forth a shower of tiny notes, like the ripple of running water. All nature stopped to listen to her song: the breezes died down; the other birds were hushed; the cattle and the sheep laid themselves silently down upon the grass.

At length the singer ended. Then the Ass, bending his head towards the ground, remarked: