g
him.'

But soft-hearted Susan replied, 'Please don't do so; he's surely not so
useless as all that.'

'Don't be foolish,' said her husband. 'The courtyard might be full of
thieves and he'd never discover it. No, the first time I see him, it's
all up with him, I can tell you.'

Susan was very unhappy at his words, and so was the dog, who was lying
in the corner of the room and had heard everything. As soon as Simon had
gone to his work, he stood up and howled so touchingly that Susan
quickly opened the door, and said 'Fly for your life, poor beast, before
your master gets home.' And the dog ran into the wood with his tail
between his legs.

When her husband returned, his wife told him that the dog had
disappeared.

'That's lucky for him,' said Simon, but Susan sighed, for she had been
very fond of the poor creature.

Now it happened that the cat and dog met each other on their travels,
and though they had not been the best of friends at home, they were
quite glad to meet among strangers. They sat down under a holly tree and
both poured forth their woes.

Presently a fox passed by, and seeing the pair sitting together in a
disconsolate fashion, he asked them why they sat there, and what they
were grumbling about.

The cat replied, 'I have caught many a mouse in my day, but now that I
am old and past work, my master wants to drown me.'

And the dog said, 'Many a night have I watched and guarded my master's
house, and now that I am old and deaf, he wants to hang me.'

The fox answered, 'That's the way of the world. But I'll help you to get
back into your master's favour, only you must first help me in my own
troubles.'

They promised to do their best, and the fox continued, 'The wolf has
declared war against me, and is at this moment marching to meet me in
company with the bear and the wild boar, and to-morrow there will be a
fierce battle between us.'

'All right,' said the dog and the cat, 'we will stand by you, and if we
are killed, it is at any rate better to die on the field of battle than
to perish ignobly at home,' and they shook paws and concluded the
bargain. The fox sent word to the wolf to meet him at a certain place,
and the three set forth to encounter him and his friends.

The wolf, the bear, and the wild boar arrived on the spot first, and
when they had waited some time for the fox, the dog, and the cat, the
bear said, 'I'll climb up into the oak tree, and look if I can see them
coming.'