So each Monkey took a watering-pot, and they scattered all over the garden. Every bush and every plant they carefully pulled up, and measured its roots; and then they gave a great deal of water to plants with long roots, and only a little when the roots were short. After that they put the plants and bushes back in the holes they came from.
After a day or two, back came the gardener from his fair. But what was his horror to see that nearly all the plants in the garden were drooping, some of them dead and many dying, while the Monkeys were busy in every direction pulling up the rest.
“Oh dear, oh dear, what in the world are you doing? My garden is ruined, my garden is ruined!” The poor gardener wept for sorrow.
The Chief Monkey was very much surprised. He thought he had been very clever to put water according to the size of the roots, and he said so.
“Clever!” said the gardener. “Clever indeed! Fools you are, there is no mistake about it.”
“Fools they may be,” said his master, who had come up behind him without being seen, “but, after all, that is their nature. You ought to have known better than to put monkeys in charge of a garden, and you are a greater fool than they.”
Then he sent that gardener away and got another.
