p, and found the Fool eating
the plums, with the goose on the grass beside him.

They hurried him off to the justice, where his own story met with no
credit. The woman of the next farm came up also, and recognized him
for the man who had begged at her door the day she lost a ham and two
new loaves. In vain he said that these things also had been given to
his friend. The friend never appeared; and the poor Fool was whipped
and put in the stocks.

Towards evening the Knave hurried up to the village green, where his
friend sat doing penance for the theft.

"My dear friend," said he, "what do I see? Is such cruelty possible?
But I hear that the justice is not above a bribe, and we must at any
cost obtain your release. I am going at once to pawn my own boots and
cloak, and everything about me that I can spare, and if you have
anything to add, this is no time to hesitate."

The poor Fool begged his friend to draw off his boots, and to take his
hat and coat as well, and to make all speed on his charitable errand.

The Knave, took all that he could get, and, leaving his friend sitting
in the stocks in his shirt-sleeves, he disappeared as swiftly as one
could wish a man to carry a reprieve.

For those good folks to whom everything must be explained in full, it
may be added that the Knave did not come back, and that he kept the
clothes.

It was very hard on the Fool; but what can one expect if he keeps
company with a Knave?

UNDER THE SUN.

There once lived a farmer who was so avaricious and miserly, and so
hard and close in all his dealings that, as folks say, he would skin a
flint. A Jew and a Yorkshireman had each tried to bargain with him,
and both had had the worst of it. It is needless to say that he never
either gave or lent.

Now, by thus scraping, and saving, and grinding for many years, he had
become almost wealthy; though, indeed, he was no better fed and
dressed than if he had not a penny to bless himself with. But what
vexed him sorely was that his next neighbour's farm prospered in all
matters better than his own; and this, although the owner was as
open-handed as our farmer was stingy.

When in spring he ploughed his own worn-out land, and reached the top
of the furrow where his field joined one of the richly-fed fields of
his neighbour, he would cast an envious glance over the hedge, and
say, "So far and no farther?" for he would have liked to have had the
whole under his plough. And so in t