The cat said to the fox, “Now, my friend, ransack that cunning brain of yours for one of your thousand ruses.  Fetch down from your sleeve one of those certain stratagems.  As for me, this is my dodge.”  So saying, he bounded to a tall tree and climbed to its top with alacrity.

The fox tried a hundred futile doublings; ran into a hundred holes; put the hounds at fault a hundred times; tried everywhere to find a safe place of retreat, but everywhere failed between being smoked out of one and driven out of another by the hounds.  Finally, as he came out of a hole two nimble dogs set upon him and strangled him at the first grip.

Too many expedients may spoil the business.  One loses time in choosing between them and in trying too many.  Have only one; but let it be a good one.

XXIX

THE MONKEY AND THE CAT

(Book IX.—­No. 17)

Bertrand was a monkey and Ratter was a cat.  They shared the same dwelling and had the same master, and a pretty mischievous pair they were.  It was impossible to intimidate them.  If anything was missed or spoilt, no one thought of blaming the other people in the house.  Bertrand stole all he could lay his hands upon, and as for Ratter, he gave more attention to cheese than he did to the mice.

One day, in the chimney corner, these two rascals sat watching some chestnuts that were roasting before the fire.  How jolly it would be to steal them they thought:  doubly desirable, for it would not only be joy to themselves, but an annoyance to others.

“Brother,” said Bertrand to Ratter, “this day you shall achieve your master-stroke:  you shall snatch some chestnuts out of the fire for me.  Providence has not fitted me for that sort of game.  If it had, I assure you chestnuts would have a fine time.”

No sooner said than done.  Ratter delicately stirred the cinders with his paw, stretched out his claws two or three times to prepare for the stroke, and then adroitly whipped out first one, then two, then three of the chestnuts, whilst Bertrand crunched them up between his teeth.  In came a servant, and there was an end of the business.  Farewell, ye rogues!

I am told that Ratter was by no means satisfied with the affair.

And princes are equally dissatisfied when, flattered to be employed in any uncomfortable concern, they burn their fingers in a distant province for the profit of some king.

XXX

The two rats, the fox, and the egg[8]

(Book X.—­No. 1)

Do not take it ill if, in these fables, I mingle a little of the bold, daring, and fine-spun philosophy that is called new.

They say that the lower animals are mere machines:  that everything they do is prompted, not by choice, but by mechanism, coming about as it were by springs.  There is, they say, neither feeling nor soul—­nothing but a mechanical body.  It goes just as a watch or clock goes, plodding on with even motion, blindly and aimlessly.