d then went off without waiting for an answer. Then the
cricket came again, and taking not the least notice of the prisoner,
sang all night.

"In the morning the weasel looked up, and saw that the chink had really
opened. He crawled to it, he was so faint he could not walk, so he had
to crawl over the floor, which was all red with his own blood. The
fungus, a thick, yellowish-green thing, like a very large and
unwholesome mushroom, was growing fast, so fast he could see it move,
and very slowly it shoved and lifted up the stone. The chink was now so
far open that in his thin, emaciated state, the weasel could have got
through; but he was so weak he could not climb up. He called to the rat,
and the rat came and tried to reach him, but it was just a little too
far down.

"'If I only had something to drink,' said the weasel, 'only one drop of
water, I think I could do it, but I am faint from thirst.'

"Off ran the rat to see what he could do, and as he passed the tub where
Pan lived he saw a bowl of water just pumped for the spaniel. The bowl
was of wood with a projecting handle--not a ring to put the fingers
through, but merely a short straight handle. He went round to the other
side of the tub in which Pan was dozing and began to scratch. Directly
Pan heard the scratching:--

"'Ho! ho!' said he, 'that's that abominable rat that steals my food,'
and he darted out, and in his tremendous hurry his chain caught the
handle of the bowl, just as the rat had hoped it would. Over went the
bowl, and all the water was spilt, but the rat, the instant he heard Pan
coming, had slipped away back to the weasel.

"When Pan was tired of looking where he had heard the scratching, he
went back to take a lap, but found the bowl upset, and that all the
water had run down the drain. As he was very thirsty after gnawing a
salt bacon-bone, he set up a barking, and the dairy-maid ran out,
thinking it was a beggar, and began to abuse him for being so clumsy as
to knock over his bowl. Pan barked all the louder, so she hit him with
the handle of her broom, and he went howling into his tub. He vowed
vengeance against the rat, but that did not satisfy his thirst.

"Meantime the water had run along the drain, and though the fungus
greedily sucked up most of it, the weasel had a good drink. After that
he felt better, and he climbed up the chink, squeezing through and
dragging his raw tail behind him, till he nearly reached the top. But
there it w