"I don't believe you," protested the tiger stolidly.
"Don't then," said the monkey, laconically, as he turned a somersault.
There was silence for a while. The tiger sat down dejectedly while the monkey watched him through the leaves and chuckled maliciously, continuing to eat noiselessly as he watched.
Having once had sufficient himself, he was not indisposed to be a little generous, so, taking some berries in one brown paw, he climbed down nearer the ground, and tendered them to his melancholy friend as an overture, saying as he did so—
"Eat and forget for awhile."
"I can never forget the loss of my dear home," was the melancholy reply.
"Nonsense," retorted the other one, who was practical, not sentimental, and who had a hundred homes all equally comfortable in the forest.
"It's no nonsense," said the tiger, shaking his head.
"Well," exclaimed the monkey, after a few seconds, "if you really are afraid to go back, which is ridiculous, I will come with you, for I fear no dogs."
"I wouldn't trust you," replied the tiger, ungraciously. "You have played me a scurvy trick or two before now."