not see him. Then he curled himself up and went to sleep.

'Are you there?' cried the shark, who was soon tired of swimming about
under the cliff, and was in haste to be gone.

The monkey awoke with a start, but did not answer.

'Are you there?' called the shark again, louder than before, and in a
very cross voice.

'Oh, yes. I am here,' replied the monkey; 'but I wish you had not
wakened me up. I was having such a nice nap.'

'Have you got it?' asked the shark. 'It is time we were going.'

'Going where?' inquired the monkey.

'Why, to my country, of course, with your heart. You CAN'T have
forgotten!'

'My dear friend,' answered the monkey, with a chuckle, 'I think you must
be going a little mad. Do you take me for a washerman's donkey?'

'Don't talk nonsense,' exclaimed the shark, who did not like being
laughed at. 'What do you mean about a washerman's donkey? And I wish you
would be quick, or we may be too late to save the sultan.'

'Did you really never hear of the washerman's donkey?' asked the monkey,
who was enjoying himself immensely. 'Why, he is the beast who has no
heart. And as I am not feeling very well, and am afraid to start while
the sun is so high lest I should get a sunstroke, if you like, I will
come a little nearer and tell you his story.'

'Very well,' said the shark sulkily, 'if you won't come, I suppose I may
as well listen to that as do nothing.'

So the monkey began.

'A washerman once lived in the great forest on the other side of the
town, and he had a donkey to keep him company and to carry him wherever
he wanted to go. For a time they got on very well, but by and bye the
donkey grew lazy and ungrateful for her master's kindness, and ran away
several miles into the heart of the forest, where she did nothing but
eat and eat and eat, till she grew so fat she could hardly move.

'One day as she was tasting quite a new kind of grass and wondering if
it was as good as what she had had for dinner the day before, a hare
happened to pass by.

'"Well, that is a fat creature," thought she, and turned out of her path
to tell the news to a lion who was a friend of hers. Now the lion had
been very ill, and was not strong enough to go hunting for himself, and
when the hare came and told him that a very fat donkey was to be found
only a few hundred yards off, tears of disappointment and weakness
filled his eyes.

'"What is the good of telling me that?" he asked, in a weepy voice; "you
kn