'Teach me,' said the Cat. 'I fear I am weak.'
'Who get justice from the men unless they can force it? Ask the sheep that are cut into mutton. Ask the horses that draw their ploughs. I don't mean it is wrong of the men to do as they do; but they needn't lie about it.'
'You surprise me,' said the Cat.
'My good Cat, there is but one law in the world. The weakest goes to the wall. The men are sharper-witted than the creatures, and so they get the better of them and use them. They may call it just if they like; but when a tiger eats a man I guess he has just as much justice on his side as the man when he eats a sheep.'
'And that is the whole of it,' said the Cat. 'Well, it is very sad. What do you do with yourself?'
'My duty, to be sure,' said the Fox; 'use my wits and enjoy myself. My dear friend, you and I are on the lucky side. We eat and are not eaten.'
'Except by the hounds now and then,' said the Cat.
'Yes; by brutes that forget their nature, and sell their freedom to the men,' said the Fox, bitterly. 'In the meantime my wits have kept my skin whole hitherto, and I bless Nature for making me a Fox and not a goose.'
'And are you happy, Fox?'
'Happy! yes, of course. So would you be if you would do like me, and use your wits. My good Cat, I should be as miserable as you if I found my geese every day at the cave's mouth. I have to hunt for them, lie for them, sneak for them, fight for them; cheat those old fat farmers, and bring out what there is inside me; and then I am happy—of course I am. And then, Cat, think of my feelings as a father last night, when my dear boy came home with the very young gosling which was marked for the Michaelmas dinner! Old Reineke himself wasn't more than a match for that young Fox at his years. You know our epic?'