go. About
midnight the fox stretched itself, and Ch'e cried, "Well, to be sure,
you've had a nice sleep!" He then drew off the clothes, and beheld an
elegant young man in a scholar's dress; but the young man jumped up,
and, making a low obeisance, returned his host many thanks for not
cutting off his head. "Oh," replied Ch'e, "I am not averse to liquor
myself; in fact they say I'm too much given to it. If you have no
objection, we'll be a pair of bottle-and-glass chums." So they lay
down and went to sleep again, Ch'e urging the young man to visit him
often, and saying that they must have faith in each other. The fox
agreed to this, but when Ch'e awoke in the morning his bedfellow had
already disappeared. So he prepared a goblet of first-rate wine in
expectation of his friend's arrival, and at nightfall sure enough he
came. They then sat together drinking, and the fox cracked so many
jokes that Ch'e said he regretted he had not known him before. "And
truly I don't know how to repay your kindness," replied the former,
"in preparing all this nice wine for me." "Oh," said Ch'e, "what's
a pint or so of wine?--nothing worth speaking of." "Well," rejoined
the fox, "you are only a poor scholar, and money isn't so easily to be
got. I must see if I can't secure a little wine capital for you." Next
evening, when he arrived, he said to Ch'e, "Two miles down toward
the south-east you will find some silver lying by the wayside. Go
early in the morning and get it." So on the morrow Ch'e set off,
and actually obtained two lumps of silver, with which he bought some
choice morsels to help them out with their wine that evening. The fox
now told him that there was a vault in his backyard which he ought to
open; and when he did so he found therein more than a hundred strings
of cash. [43] "Now then," cried Ch'e, delighted, "I shall have no more
anxiety about funds for buying wine with all this in my purse!" "Ah,"
replied the fox, "the water in a puddle is not inexhaustible. I must
do something further for you." Some days afterward the fox said to
Ch'e, "Buckwheat is very cheap in the market just now. Something is
to be done in that line." Accordingly Ch'e bought over forty tons,
and thereby incurred general ridicule; but by and by there was a bad
drought, and all kinds of grain and beans were spoilt. Only buckwheat
would grow, and Ch'e sold off his stock at a profit of 1000 per
cent. His wealth thus began to increase; he bought two hundred a