eck so that it tinkled as he
ran. When it heard the bell the crocodile said "What a bother! I am
waiting for the jackal and here comes a sheep tinkling its bell." The
jackal heard the crocodile's exclamation and so detected the trick;
he at once went and fetched a light and set fire to the heap of straw
and the crocodile was burnt to death.

CXXIV. The Fool and His Dinner.

A man once went to visit his mother-in-law and for dinner they gave
him rice with a relish made of young bamboo shoots. The man liked it
extremely and thought that it was meat, but he saw no pieces of meat;
so he asked his mother-in-law what it was made of; and behind him was
a door made of bamboos: so the mother-in-law said, "I have cooked
that which is behind you;" and he looked round and saw the door;
so he resolved to carry off the door, as it made such good eating,
and in the middle of the night he took it off the hinges and ran away
with it. In the morning the door was missed and the mother-in-law
guessed what had happened and had a hearty laugh.

Meanwhile the man went home with the door and chopped it up and gave
the pieces to his wife to cook; the wife said that it was useless
to cook dry chips but he insisted and said that her mother had made
a beautiful dish of them. So they were cooked and the man sat down
to eat; but they were all hard and tasteless; then he scolded his
wife and she told him to cook them himself if he was not pleased;
so he cooked some himself and the result was the same; and his wife
laughed at him and when the villagers heard of it they nicknamed him
"Silly", and used to call the name after him when they met him.

CXXV. The Stingy Daughter.

Once a man went to visit his married daughter: he intended to arrive
in time for dinner; so though he passed some edible herbs on the way
he did not stop to eat them.

When he arrived he was duly welcomed and after some conversation he
told his daughter that he must return the same day; she said "All
right, but wait till it gets hot." (The father understood this to be
a metaphorical way of saying "Wait till the dinner is cooked.") But
the daughter was determined not to cook the rice while her father was
there: so they sat talking and when the sun was high the daughter
went into the yard and felt the ground with her foot and finding
it scorching she said "Now father, it is time for you to be going:
it has got hot" Then the old man understood that she was not goi