e shall soon see,' cried the wolf, opening his huge mouth and
crouching for a spring.

'What are you doing?' exclaimed the fox, stepping backwards.

'What am I doing? What I am going to do is to make my supper off you, in
less time than a cock takes to crow.'

'Well, I suppose you must have your joke,' answered the fox lightly,
but never removing her eye from the wolf, who replied with a snarl which
showed all his teeth:

'I don't want to joke, but to eat!'

'But surely a person of your talents must perceive that you might eat me
to the very last morsel and never know that you had swallowed anything
at all!'

'In this world the cleverest people are always the hungriest,' replied
the wolf.

'Ah! how true that is; but--'

'I can't stop to listen to your "buts" and "yets,"' broke in the wolf
rudely; 'let us get to the point, and the point is that I want to eat
you and not talk to you.'

'Have you no pity for a poor mother?' asked the fox, putting her tail to
her eyes, but peeping slily out of them all the same.

'I am dying of hunger,' answered the wolf, doggedly; 'and you know,' he
added with a grin, 'that charity begins at home.'

'Quite so,' replied the fox; 'it would be unreasonable of me to object
to your satisfying your appetite at my expense. But if the fox resigns
herself to the sacrifice, the mother offers you one last request.'

'Then be quick and don't waste my time, for I can't wait much longer.
What is it you want?'

'You must know,' said the fox, 'that in this village there is a rich man
who makes in the summer enough cheeses to last him for the whole year,
and keeps them in an old well, now dry, in his courtyard. By the well
hang two buckets on a pole that were used, in former days, to draw up
water. For many nights I have crept down to the palace, and have lowered
myself in the bucket, bringing home with me enough cheese to feed the
children. All I beg of you is to come with me, and, instead of hunting
chickens and such things, I will make a good meal off cheese before I
die.'

'But the cheeses may be all finished by now?'

'If you were only to see the quantities of them!' laughed the fox. 'And
even if they were finished, there would always be ME to eat.'

'Well, I will come. Lead the way, but I warn you that if you try to
escape or play any tricks you are reckoning without your host--that is
to say, without my legs, which are as long as yours!'

All was silent in the village, and not