A Farmer, whose poultry-yard had suffered severely from the foxes, succeeded at last in catching one in a trap.
“Ah, you rascal!” said he, as he saw him struggling, “I’ll teach you to steal my fat geese. You shall hang on the tree yonder, and your brothers shall see what comes of thieving.”
The Farmer was twisting a halter to do what he had threatened, when the Fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before, thought there could be no harm in trying if it might not do him one more good turn.
“You will hang me,” he said, “to frighten my brother foxes. On the word of a fox they won’t care a rabbit-skin for it; they’ll come and look at me, but you may depend upon it, they will dine at your expense before they go home again!”
“Then I shall hang you for yourself, as a rogue and a rascal,” said the Farmer.
“I am only what Nature, or whatever you call the thing, chose to make me,” the Fox answered; “I didn’t make myself.”
“You stole my geese,” said the man.
“Why did Nature make me like geese, then?” said the Fox. “Live and let live; give me my share and I won’t touch yours; but you keep them all to yourself.”
“I don’t understand your fine talk,” answered the Farmer; “but I know that you are a thief, and that you deserve to be hanged.”