So when he had done I asked him about that, for all the rats I had seen had tails which were far from beautiful, according to my notion.
The man listened gravely, then said: “But certainly, once the rat had a tail like a horse.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“When the rabbit had a tail like a cat,” he said.
“But I am still puzzled,” I told him. “Was it long ago?”
“It was when the deer’s tail was plumed like the tail of a dog,” he told me.
As we talked, a kind of polite silence was upon all the people gathered about us; then a very, very old woman who was smoking a cigar nodded her head and said: “But Tio Ravenna is right. It was in the days of Hunbatz, who lived on beetles and spiders, and I heard it from my mother’s mother, and she from the mother of her mother.” Then the old woman went on smoking with her eyes closed, and all who were there nodded at one another, thinking, I suppose, that the old grandmother would presently tell the story. But of course, they who knew her well were wiser than to ask her to tell the Tale of Three Tails, so every one waited.
Presently, a little girl gave the old grandmother a piece of sugar and asked: “Was it two brothers, or three, who had to clear the great forest? I am not sure.”
At that the little old lady’s eyes were bright and she threw away her cigar and said:
“Two brothers. That I have told you before.” After a little sigh, which was only pretending that she was weary of telling the tale, she said: “You know that I have told it to you before, and it is wrong that I should have to tell it so often. But you see this.”