en deceiving him the whole time; that he had no wish to lose his
life, which he certainly would have done had he gone on to the Sea
King's Palace to the old doctor waiting for him, instead of persuading
the jelly fish to return under false pretenses.

"Of course, I won't GIVE you my liver, but come and get it if you can!"
added the monkey mockingly from the tree.

There was nothing for the jelly fish to do now but to repent of his
stupidity, and to return to the Dragon King of the Sea and to confess
his failure, so he started sadly and slowly to swim back. The last
thing he heard as he glided away, leaving the island behind him, was
the monkey laughing at him.

Meanwhile the Dragon King, the doctor, the chief steward, and all the
servants were waiting impatiently for the return of the jelly fish.
When they caught sight of him approaching the Palace, they hailed him
with delight. They began to thank him profusely for all the trouble he
had taken in going to Monkey Island, and then they asked him where the
monkey was.

Now the day of reckoning had come for the jelly fish. He quaked all
over as he told his story. How he had brought the monkey halfway over
the sea, and then had stupidly let out the secret of his commission;
how the monkey had deceived him by making him believe that he had left
his liver behind him.

The Dragon King's wrath was great, and he at once gave orders that the
jelly fish was to be severely punished. The punishment was a horrible
one. All the bones were to be drawn out from his living body, and he
was to be beaten with sticks.

The poor jelly fish, humiliated and horrified beyond all words, cried
out for pardon. But the Dragon King's order had to be obeyed. The
servants of the Palace forthwith each brought out a stick and
surrounded the jelly fish, and after pulling out his bones they beat
him to a flat pulp, and then took him out beyond the Palace gates and
threw him into the water. Here he was left to suffer and repent his
foolish chattering, and to grow accustomed to his new state of
bonelessness.

From this story it is evident that in former times the jelly fish once
had a shell and bones something like a tortoise, but, ever since the
Dragon King's sentence was carried out on the ancestor of the jelly
fishes, his descendants have all been soft and boneless just as you see
them to-day thrown up by the waves high upon the shores of Japan.

THE QUARREL OF THE MONKEY AND THE CRAB.