‘Highness!’ she observed, ’for a consideration I could settle this Swing-ear.’

‘You could!’ exclaimed the Rajah.

‘I think so!’ repeated the woman.

‘Give her a consideration forthwith,’ said the Rajah.

“Karala, who had her own ideas upon the matter, took the present and set out.  Being come to the hills, she made a circle, and did homage to Gunputtee,[13] without whom nothing prospers.  Then, taking some fruit she had brought, such as monkeys love extremely, she scattered it up and down in the wood, and withdrew to watch.  Very soon the monkeys finding the fruit, put down the bell, to do justice to it, and the woman picking it up, bore it back to the town, where she became an object of uncommon veneration.  We, indeed,” concluded Damanaka, “bring you a Bull instead of a bell—­your Majesty shall now see him!”

“Thereupon Lusty-life was introduced, and, the interview passing off well, he remained many days in the forest on excellent terms with the Lion.

’One day another Lion, named ‘Stiff-ears,’ the brother of King Tawny-hide, came to visit him.  The King received him with all imaginable respect, bade him be seated, and rose from his throne to go and kill some beasts for his refreshment.

‘May it please your Majesty,’ interposed the Bull, ’a deer was slain to-day—­where is its flesh?’

‘Damanaka and his brother know best,’ said the King.

‘Let us ascertain if there be any,’ suggested the Bull.

‘It is useless,’ said the King, laughing—­’they leave none,’

‘What!’ exclaimed the Bull, ‘have those Jackals eaten a whole deer?’

‘Eaten it, spoiled it, and given it away,’ answered Tawny-hide; ’they always do so,’

‘And this without your Majesty’s sanction?’ asked the Bull.

‘Oh! certainly not with my sanction,’ said the King.

‘Then,’ exclaimed the Bull, ’it is too bad:  and in Ministers too!—­

    ’Narrow-necked to let out little, big of belly to keep much,
    As a flagon is—­the Vizir of a Sultan should be such.’

’No wealth will stand such waste, your Majesty—­

    ’He who thinks a minute little, like a fool misuses more;
    He who counts a cowry nothing, being wealthy, will be poor.’

‘A king’s treasury, my liege, is the king’s life.’

‘Good brother,’ observed Stiff-ears, who had heard what the Bull said, ’these Jackals are your Ministers of Home and Foreign Affairs—­they should not have direction of the Treasury.  They are old servants, too, and you know the saying—­

’Brahmans, soldiers, these and kinsmen—­of the three set none in
charge: 
For the Brahman, tho’ you rack him, yields no treasure small or large;
And the soldier, being trusted, writes his quittance with his sword,
And the kinsman cheats his kindred by the charter of the word;
But a servant old in service, worse than any one is thought,
Who, by long-tried license fearless, knows his master’s anger nought.’