ive up the ghost: put your paw upon
mine, and say you forgive me."

Despite his anger, the generous dog could not set tooth on a dying foe.

"You have served me a shabby trick," said he; "you have left me to
starve in a hole, and you have evidently maligned me with my cousin:
certainly I meant to be avenged on you; but if you are really dying,
that alters the affair."

"Oh, oh!" groaned the fox, very bitterly; "I am past help; the poor cat
is gone for Doctor Ape, but he'll never come in time. What a thing it
is to have a bad conscience on one's death-bed! But wait till the cat
returns, and I'll do you full justice with her before I die."

The good-natured dog was much moved at seeing his mortal enemy in such a
state, and endeavoured as well as he could to console him.

"Oh, oh!" said the fox; "I am so parched in the throat, I am burning;"
and he hung his tongue out of his mouth, and rolled his eyes more
fearfully than ever.

"Is there no water here?" said the dog, looking round.

"Alas, no!--yet stay! yes, now I think of it, there is some in that
little hole in the wall; but how to get at it! It is so high that I
can't, in my poor weak state, climb up to it; and I dare not ask such a
favour of one I have injured so much."

"Don't talk of it," said the dog: "but the hole's very small, I could
not put my nose through it."

"No; but if you just climb up on that stone, and thrust your paw into
the hole, you can dip it into the water, and so cool my poor parched
mouth. Oh, what a thing it is to have a bad conscience!"

The dog sprang upon the stone, and, getting on his hind legs, thrust his
front paw into the hole; when suddenly Reynard pulled a string that he
had concealed under the straw, and the dog found his paw caught tight to
the wall in a running noose.

"Ah, rascal!" said he, turning round; but the fox leaped up gayly from
the straw, and fastening the string with his teeth to a nail in the
other end of the wall, walked out, crying, "Good-by, my dear friend;
have a care how you believe hereafter in sudden conversions!" So he left
the dog on his hind legs to take care of the house.

Reynard found the cat waiting for him where he had appointed, and they
walked lovingly together till they came to the cave. It was now dark,
and they saw the basket waiting below; the fox assisted the poor cat
into it. "There is only room for one," said he, "you must go first!" Up
rose the basket; the fox heard a piteous mew,