As a Wolf was lapping at the head of a running brook, he spied a stray Lamb paddling, at some distance down the stream. Having made up his mind to make his dinner off her, he bethought himself how he might begin the quarrel. "Wretch," said he to her, "how dare you muddle the water that I am drinking?" "Indeed," said the Lamb humbly, "I do not see how I can disturb the water, since it runs from you to me, not from me to you." "Be that as it may," replied the Wolf, "it was but a year ago that you called me many ill names." "Oh, sir," said the Lamb trembling, "a year ago I was not born." "No matter, it was your father then, or some of your relations," and immediately seizing the innocent Lamb, he tore her to pieces.
The Fox and the Crow
A crow had snatched a piece of cheese out of a cottage window, and flew up with it into a high tree, that she might eat it at her ease. A Fox having spied her came and sat underneath and began to pay the Crow compliments on her beauty. "Why," said he, "I never saw it before, but your feathers are of a more delicate white than any that ever I saw in my life! Ah! what a fine shape and graceful neck is there! And I have no doubt but you have a tolerable voice. If it is but as fine as your complexion, I do not know a bird that can match you."
The Crow, tickled with this very civil language, nestled and wriggled about, and hardly knew where she was. But thinking the Fox a little doubtful as to the quality of her voice, and having a mind to set him right in the matter, she began to sing, and in the same instant, down dropped the cheese; which the Fox presently chopped up, and then bade her remember that whatever he had said of her beauty, he had spoken nothing yet of her brains.