ated, and rose from his throne to go and kill
some beasts for his refreshment.

'May it please your Majesty,' interposed the Bull, 'a deer was slain
to-day--where is its flesh?'

'Damanaka and his brother know best,' said the King.

'Let us ascertain if there be any,' suggested the Bull.

'It is useless,' said the King, laughing--'they leave none,'

'What!' exclaimed the Bull, 'have those Jackals eaten a whole deer?'

'Eaten it, spoiled it, and given it away,' answered Tawny-hide; 'they
always do so,'

'And this without your Majesty's sanction?' asked the Bull.

'Oh! certainly not with my sanction,' said the King.

'Then,' exclaimed the Bull, 'it is too bad: and in Ministers too!--

'Narrow-necked to let out little, big of belly to keep much,
As a flagon is--the Vizir of a Sultan should be such.'

'No wealth will stand such waste, your Majesty--

'He who thinks a minute little, like a fool misuses more;
He who counts a cowry nothing, being wealthy, will be poor.'

'A king's treasury, my liege, is the king's life.'

'Good brother,' observed Stiff-ears, who had heard what the Bull said,
'these Jackals are your Ministers of Home and Foreign Affairs--they
should not have direction of the Treasury. They are old servants, too,
and you know the saying--

'Brahmans, soldiers, these and kinsmen--of the three set none in
charge:
For the Brahman, tho' you rack him, yields no treasure small or large;
And the soldier, being trusted, writes his quittance with his sword,
And the kinsman cheats his kindred by the charter of the word;
But a servant old in service, worse than any one is thought,
Who, by long-tried license fearless, knows his master's anger nought.'

Ministers, my royal brother, are often like obstinate swellings that
want squeezing, and yours must be kept in order.'

'They are not particularly obedient, I confess,' said Tawny-hide.

'It is very wrong,' replied Stiff-ears; 'and if you will be advised by
me--as we have banqueted enough to-day--you will appoint this
grain-eating and sagacious Bull your Superintendent of Stores.'

'It shall be so,' exclaimed the King.

'Lusty-life was accordingly appointed to serve out the provisions, and
for many days Tawny-hide showed him favor beyond all others in the
Court.

"Now the Jackals soon found that food was no longer so freely provided
by this arrangement as before, and they met to consult about it.