“With pleasure,” said the Fox. So the Fox led the Wolf to the Sea and said to the waves, “Now go back”—they went back! “Now come up”—and they came up! Then the Fox said to the waves, “My friend, the Wolf, has come to see you, so you will come up and go back till I bid you stop; and the Wolf saw with wonder the waves coming up and going back.
He said to the Fox, “May I go into the Sea?”
“As far as you like. Don’t be afraid, for at a word, the Sea would go or come as I bid, and as you have already seen.”
The Wolf believed the Fox, and followed the waves rather far from the shore. A great wave soon upset him, and threw his carcass on the shore. The Fox made a hearty breakfast on it.
THE FOX IN THE WELL
By Ramaswami Raju
A fox fell into a well and was holding hard to some roots at the side of it, just above the water. A Wolf, who was passing by, saw him, and said, “Hello, Reynard, after all you have fallen into a well!”
“But not without a purpose, and not without the means of getting out of it,” said the Fox.
“What do you mean?” said the Wolf.
“Why,” said the Fox, “there is a drought all over the country now, and the water in this well is the only means of appeasing the thirst of the thousands that live in this neighborhood. They held a meeting, and requested me to keep the water from going down lower; so I am holding it up for the public good.”