m one of the dwellers in the happy garden," answered the
Peacock, strutting. "But who are you who slink about so secretly, as if
afraid of some one?"

"I am one of the cherubim who are appointed to sing the Lord's praises,"
answered the wicked Satan. "I have stopped for a moment to visit the
Paradise which He has prepared for the blest, and I find as my first
glimpse of its glories you, O most lovely bird! Will you conceal me
under your rainbow wings and bring me within the walls?"

"I dare not," answered the Peacock. "The Lord allows none to enter here.
He will be angry and will punish me."

"O charming bird!" went on Satan with his smooth tongue, "take me with
you, and I will teach you three mysterious words which shall preserve
you forever from sickness, age, and death."

At this promise the Peacock was greatly tempted and began to hesitate in
his refusals. And at last he said,--

"I dare not myself let you in, O stranger, but if you keep your promise
I will send the Serpent, who is wiser than I and who may more easily
find some way to let you enter unobserved."

So it was through the Peacock that Satan met the vile Serpent, whose
shape he assumed in order to enter the garden and tempt Eve with the
apple. And for the Peacock's share in the doings of that dreadful day
the Lord took away his beautiful voice and sent him forth from the
pleasant garden to chatter harshly in this workaday world, where his
gorgeousness and his vanity are but a reminder to men of the shame which
he brought upon their ancestors.

* * * * *

"And therefore," said the Crow, concluding his gossip, "therefore, dear
Pheasant, I see no reason why we should envy your cousin. We are very
plain citizens of Birdland, but we are at least respectable. I like you
much better, having nothing to make you vain, nothing of which to be
ashamed."

* * * * *

So the Crow spoke, in the wisdom which he had learned from Solomon. But
the Peacock's cousin refused to be comforted. The shabbiness of his coat
preyed upon his mind, and he fancied that the other birds jeered at him
because in such old clothes he dared to be the Peacock's cousin. It
seemed to him that every day the Peacock himself grew more haughty and
more patronizing.

One day the Crow and the Peacock's cousin were sauntering through the
Malay woods when they met the Peacock face to face. The Crow looked
defiant and stood jaunti