nd laughed and said: 'What is the use of all your
cunning, you coward? If you had been bold like me you would never have
got into this scrape, by being afraid of a dead branch of a tree because
it pinched your foot. I should have run by quickly. You are a silly,
foolish, blind sort of creature; could you not see that all the things
had agreed to deceive you?'

"At this the weasel was so wroth it woke him up from his dying, and he
returned the taunt and said: 'Rat, you are by far the silliest to help
the hare and the mouse; it is true they sent you a message about the
gin, but that was not for love of you, I am sure, and I can't think why
they should send it; but you may depend it is some trick, and very
likely the gin is not where they said at all, but in another place, and
you will walk into it when you are not thinking, and then you will curse
the hare and the mouse'.

"'Ah,' said the rat, 'that sounds like reason; you are right, the hare
and the mouse are going to play me a trick. But I will spite them, I
will let you out.'

"'Will you?' said the weasel, starting up and feeling almost strong
again. 'But you can't, these stones are so thick you cannot move them,
nor scratch through them, nor raise them; no, you cannot let me out.'

"'Oh, yes, I can,' said the rat, 'I know a way to move the biggest
stones, and if you can only wait a day or two I will make this chink
large enough for you to come up.'

"'A day or two,' said the weasel in despair; 'why, I am nearly dead now
with hunger.'

"'Well then,' said the rat, 'gnaw your own tail;' and off he went
laughing at the joke. The miserable weasel cried and sniffed, and
sniffed and cried, till by-and-by he heard the rat come back and begin
to scratch outside. Presently the rat stopped, and was going away again,
when the weasel begged and prayed him not to leave him to die there in
the dark.

"'Very well,' said the rat, 'I will send the cricket to sing to you. In
a day or two you will see the chink get bigger, and meantime you can
eat your tail; and as you will get very thin, you will be able to creep
through a very small hole and get out all the quicker. Ha! ha! As for
me, I am going to have a capital dinner from Pan's dish, for he has
fallen asleep in his tub.'

"So the weasel was left to himself, and though he watched and watched,
he could not see the chink open in the least, and he got so dreadfully
hungry that at last, after sucking his paws, he was obliged to