, you might give a couple of brays odds to the best and most
finished brayer in the world; the tone you have got is deep, your voice
is well kept up as to time and pitch, and your finishing notes come thick
and fast; in fact, I own myself beaten, and yield the palm to you, and
give in to you in this rare accomplishment.' 'Well then,' said the owner,
'I'll set a higher value on myself for the future, and consider that I
know something, as I have an excellence of some sort; for though I always
thought I brayed well, I never supposed I came up to the pitch of
perfection you say.' 'And I say too,' said the second, 'that there are
rare gifts going to loss in the world, and that they are ill bestowed
upon those who don't know how to make use of them.' 'Ours,' said the
owner of the ass, 'unless it is in cases like this we have now in hand,
cannot be of any service to us, and even in this God grant they may be of
some use.' So saying they separated, and took to their braying once more,
but every instant they were deceiving one another, and coming to meet one
another again, until they arranged by way of countersign, so as to know
that it was they and not the ass, to give two brays, one after the other.
In this way, doubling the brays at every step, they made the complete
circuit of the forest, but the lost ass never gave them an answer or even
the sign of one. How could the poor ill-starred brute have answered,
when, in the thickest part of the forest, they found him devoured by
wolves? As soon as he saw him his owner said, 'I was wondering he did not
answer, for if he wasn't dead he'd have brayed when he heard us, or he'd
have been no ass; but for the sake of having heard you bray to such
perfection, gossip, I count the trouble I have taken to look for him well
bestowed, even though I have found him dead.' 'It's in a good hand,
gossip,' said the other; 'if the abbot sings well, the acolyte is not
much behind him.' So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to their
village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and acquaintances
what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each crying up the
other's perfection in braying. The whole story came to be known and
spread abroad through the villages of the neighbourhood; and the devil,
who never sleeps, with his love for sowing dissensions and scattering
discord everywhere, blowing mischief about and making quarrels out of
nothing, contrived to make the people of the other town