A new rule was made, which exasperated the cats, and their complaints deafened the whole neighbourhood.  Their advocate advised returning absolutely to the old rules and decrees.  The law books were searched for, but could nowhere be found.  And that was no wonder, for the books which had been hidden in a corner by one set of partisans at first had been at last devoured by mice.  This gave rise to another law-suit, which the mice lost and had to pay for.

Many old cats, cunning, subtle, and sharp, and bearing a grudge against the whole race of mice beside, lay in wait for them, caught them, and cleared them out of the house, much to the advantage of the master of the establishment.

So, returning to my moral, one cannot find under heaven any animal, any being, any creature who has not his opponent.  This appears to be a law of nature.  It would be time wasted to seek for a reason.  God does well whatever he does.  Beyond that I know nothing; but I do know that people come to high words over nothing three times out of four.  Ah, ye human folk! even at the age of sixty you ought to be sent back to the schoolmaster.

XL

THE WOLF AND THE FOX

(Book XII.—­No. 9)

A fox once remarked to a wolf, “Dear friend, do you know that the utmost I can get for my meals is a tough old cock or perchance a lean hen or two.  It is a diet of which I am thoroughly weary.  You, on the other hand, feed much better than that, and with far less danger.  My foraging takes me close up to houses; but you keep far away.  I beg of you, comrade, to teach me your trade.  Let me be the first of my race to furnish my pot with a plump sheep, and you will not find me ungrateful.”

“Very well,” replied the obliging wolf.  “I have a brother recently dead, suppose you go and get his skin and wear it.”  This the fox accordingly did and the wolf commenced to give him lessons.  “You must do this and act so, when you wish to separate the dogs from the flocks.”  At first Reynard was a little awkward, but he rapidly improved, and with a little practice he reached at last the perfection of wolfish strategy.  Just as he had learned all that there was to know a flock approached.  The sham wolf ran after it spreading terror all around, even as Patroclus wearing[19] the armour of Achilles spread alarm throughout camp and city, when mothers, wives, and old men hastened to the temples for protection.  “In this case, the bleating army made sure there must be quite fifty wolves after them, and fled, dog and shepherd with them, to the neighbouring village, leaving only one sheep as a hostage.

This remaining sheep our thief instantly seized and was making off with it.  But he had not gone more than a few steps when a cock crew near by.  At this signal, which habit of life had led him to regard as a warning of dawn and danger, he dropped his disguising wolf-skin and, forgetting his sheep, his lesson, and his master, scampered off with a will.