nt back to the starting
place.

The stag was quite punctual, and as soon as the sun's rays struck the
trunk of the tree the stag started off, and was soon far out of the
sight of the tortoise. Every now and then he would turn his head as
he ran, and call out: 'How are you getting on?' and the tortoise who
happened to be nearest at that moment would answer: 'All right, I am
close up to you.'

Full of astonishment, the stag would redouble his efforts, but it was no
use. Each time he asked: 'Are you there?' the answer would come: 'Yes,
of course, where else should I be?' And the stag ran, and ran, and ran,
till he could run no more, and dropped down dead on the grass.

And the tortoise, when he thinks about it, laughs still.

But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories were
told in the forest. There was a famous monkey who was just as clever and
more mischievous, because he was so much quicker on his feet and
with his hands. It was quite impossible to catch him and give him the
thrashing he so often deserved, for he just swung himself up into a
tree and laughed at the angry victim who was sitting below. Sometimes,
however, the inhabitants of the forest were so foolish as to provoke
him, and then they got the worst of it. This was what happened to the
barber, whom the monkey visited one morning, saying that he wished to be
shaved. The barber bowed politely to his customer, and begging him to
be seated, tied a large cloth round his neck, and rubbed his chin with
soap; but instead of cutting off his beard, the barber made a snip
at the end of his tail. It was only a very little bit and the monkey
started up more in rage than in pain. 'Give me back the end of my tail,'
he roared, 'or I will take one of your razors.' The barber refused to
give back the missing piece, so the monkey caught up a razor from the
table and ran away with it, and no one in the forest could be shaved for
days, as there was not another to be got for miles and miles.

As he was making his way to his own particular palm-tree, where the
cocoanuts grew, which were so useful for pelting passers-by, he met a
woman who was scaling a fish with a bit of wood, for in this side of the
forest a few people lived in huts near the river.

'That must be hard work,' said the monkey, stopping to look; 'try my
knife--you will get on quicker.' And he handed her the razor as he
spoke. A few days later he came back and rapped at the door of the hu