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410 As the laundryman wandered in the forest, he saw a dead tiger, and he thought: "Ah, this is lucky. I will put this tiger-skin on the donkey and let him loose in the barley fields at night. For the farmers will think him a tiger and will not drive him out."

When this was done, the donkey ate barley to his heart's content. And at dawn the laundryman took him back to the barn. So as time passed, he grew plump. He could hardly squeeze into the stall.

But one day the donkey heard the bray of a she-donkey in the distance. At the mere sound he himself began to bray. Then the farmers perceived that he was a donkey in disguise, and killed him with blows from clubs and stones and arrows.

"And that is why I say:

and the rest of it."

Now while the monkey was telling these stories to the crocodile, another water-beast came up and said: "Friend crocodile, your wife has starved herself to death."

When the crocodile heard this, he was bewildered in spirit, and lamented: "Oh, what has come upon me, upon hapless me? For the proverb says: