e it to some one to keep for me, or else at once
offer it up at the temple. And when I do this, when people see a poor
old priest with a sum of money quite unsuited to his station, they
will think it very suspicious, and I shall have to tell the tale as it
occurred; but as I shall say that the badger that gave me the money
has ceased coming to my hut, you need not fear being waylaid, but can
come, as of old, and shelter yourself from the cold." To this the
badger nodded assent, and as long as the old priest lived, it came and
spent the winter nights with him.

_The Grateful Foxes_

One fine spring day, two friends went out to a moor to gather fern,
attended by a boy with a bottle of wine and a box of provisions. As
they were straying about, they saw at the foot of a hill a fox that
had brought out its cub to play; and whilst they looked on, struck by
the strangeness of the sight, three children came up from a
neighbouring village with baskets in their hands, on the same errand
as themselves. As soon as the children saw the foxes, they picked up a
bamboo stick and took the creatures stealthily in the rear; and when
the old foxes took to flight, they surrounded them and beat them with
the stick, so that they ran away as fast as their legs could carry
them; but two of the boys held down the cub, and, seizing it by the
scruff of the neck, went off in high glee.

The two friends were looking on all the while, and one of them,
raising his voice, shouted out, "Hallo! you boys! what are you doing
with that fox?"

The eldest of the boys replied, "We're going to take him home and sell
him to a young man in our village. He'll buy him, and then he'll boil
him in a pot and eat him."

"Well," replied the other, after considering the matter attentively,
"I suppose it's all the same to you whom you sell him to. You'd better
let me have him."

"Oh, but the young man from our village promised us a good round sum
if we could find a fox, and got us to come out to the hills and catch
one; and so we can't sell him to you at any price."

"Well, I suppose it cannot be helped, then; but how much would the
young man give you for the cub?"

"Oh, he'll give us three hundred cash at least."

"Then I'll give you half a bu; and so you'll gain five hundred cash by
the transaction."

"Oh, we'll sell him for that, sir. How shall we hand him over to you?"

"Just tie him up here," said the other; and so he made fast the cub
round th