The Fox and the Cat

ONE  DAY   MR.   FOX   MET   MRS.   CAT   IN   A   GLADE of the forest. She was a small, pretty, black-and-white puss.

"Good day, Mr. Fox," said she, dropping him a curtsey, "how are you this fine morning? How expensive food is to be sure! I sometimes wonder how we are all going to manage! How do you get on these days?"

Mr. Fox was very proud, and without answering her polite greeting, he looked her up and down and then turned away his head as if he didn't care for the sight of her. At last he said:

"You poor, wretched bird-catcher! You hungry mouse-hunter! I’m never troubled about food being difficult to get! Fancy daring to ask me how I am getting on? How many arts and dodges do you know, you silly little piebald thing?"

"I only know one," said Mrs. Puss modestly.

"What art is that?" asked the Fox.

"Well, if the house dogs or the hounds chase me, I know how to jump up into a tree and save myself."

"Is that all?" said Mr. Fox. "I know a hundred arts and dodges! I've got a sackful of cunning! Really, little Mrs. Puss, I’m sorry for you."

Just then along came a hunter with a couple of hounds. Directly she heard them, the little Cat sprang nimbly up a tree and there she sat watching, gently twitching the tip of her tail. Right at the top she sat, among the thinnest twigs where no heavy creature could possibly catch her.

But poor cunning Mr. Fox! He was so long in choosing between the hundred ways he had of getting away from danger, that the hounds were on to him before he had done anything except think, so, as you can guess, that was the end of him.

"Poor Mr Fox," thought Mrs. Cat, as she climbed quietly down from her tree when the danger was over, "he certainly had very bad manners! But I should have liked to have seen at least a few of his hundred tricks! But after all, perhaps it's really best only to know one."