Page:Fables of Aesop.pdf/22

 A Dog was once crossing a little rivulet, with a piece of flesh in his mouth. Seeing his own shadow in the stream, and believing it to be another dog who was also carrying a piece of flesh, he could hot forbear making a catch at it. He, however, was so far from getting any thing by his greedy design, that in snatching at the other dog’s meat, he let drop the piece he carried in his own mouth, which immediately sunk to the bottom, end was irrecoverably lost.He that aims at too much, often loses all. The Lion desired the Ass to hide in a thicket, and to bray in the most frightful manner possible. 'By this means,' says he, 'you will rouse all the beasts, while I stand at the outlets, and take them as hey are making off.” Accordingly the Ass brayed, and the timorous beasts scoured off, when the Lion, at his post, devoured them. Being satisfied, he told the Ass to stop, who asked how he liked it. 'So well’ said the Lion, ‘that I myself had been afraid had I not known.'