ut on an innocent
air and declared that he knew nothing about it but he invited the
owner of the missing animal to look into the goat house and see if
it had accidentally got mixed up with the other goats. The search
was of course in vain.

Directly the owner had gone the thief brought out the body and skinned
and cut it up, and every one in the house ate his fill of flesh. Before
they went to sleep the thief told his sons to be careful not to go
near any of the other boys when they were grazing the cattle next day,
lest they should smell that they had been eating meat.

Next morning the thief's son took his goats out to graze and was
careful not to go near any of the other boys who were tending cattle;
whenever they approached him he moved away. At last they asked him what
was the matter; and he told them that they must keep at a distance lest
they should smell what he had been eating. "What have you eaten?" The
simpleton replied that he had been eating goat's flesh and that there
was still some in the house. The cowherds at once ran off and told the
owner of the lost goat. The news soon spread and the villagers caught
the man who had killed the goat and searched his house and found the
flesh of the goat. Then they fined him one rupee four annas and made
him give another goat in exchange for the one he had stolen.

CXXXVIII. The Divorce.

There was once a man who had reason to suspect his wife's
faithfulness. He first tried threatening and scolding her; but this
had no good effect, for far from being ashamed she only gave him
back harder words than she received. So he set to work to find some
way of divorcing her without making a scandal. One day when he came
home with a fine basket of fish which he had caught he found that his
father-in-law had come to pay them a visit. As he cleaned the fish
he grumbled at the thought that his wife would of course give all the
best of them to her father; at last an idea struck him. As he handed
over the fish to his wife he told her to be careful not to give her
father the heads of the _mangri_ fish nor the dust of tobacco, as
it was very wrong to give either of those things to a visitor. "Very
well," she answered; but to herself she thought "What does he mean by
forbidding me to do these things? I shall take care to give my father
nothing but the heads of the fish" for her pleasure was to thwart her
husband. So when the evening meal was ready she filled a separate plate
fo