I do not know how he managed it, but a fox one day got into a poultry-yard and there he ate his fill. Some time afterwards, going along to the poultry-yard, the hedgehog met him. “Where are you going, brother?”
“I am going to eat my fill.”
“Surely you cannot get it just as you like.”
“Oh,” he said, “you just come with me and I will show you. I know my way, and there is plenty for me and for you, and some to leave behind for another time.”
The hedgehog, who was a wise old fellow, said to the fox:
“Now, be careful; are you sure that the owners of the poultry yard will let you in again so easily?”
“Don’t you trouble,” said the fox. “I know my business, you just come with me.” And the hedgehog went with him.
But the people of the poultry-yard were not such fools as the fox had taken them for, and just where the fox had got in last time they had dug a deep pit, and into that the fox and the hedgehog tumbled. When they found themselves at the bottom of the pit, the hedgehog turned to the fox and said, “Well, you clever fellow, is that the proper way to get into the poultry-yard? Did I not warn you?”
“What is the good of talking?” replied the fox, “We are here now, and we must see how to get out of it.”
“But you are so clever, and I am only a poor old fool.”