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LOSS OF GAINS
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and if, when driven, you neigh like a horse, then I will relent." And this was done.

Next morning Splendor came before the king as he sat in council. And the king asked, when he saw him: "Good Splendor, why is your head shaved at this odd time?" And Splendor answered:

What will not man for woman do,
When heads are shorn—at odd times, too?
What will not man for woman say,
When those who are not horses, neigh?


"You simpleton! You, too, are henpecked just like Joy and Splendor. You tried to find a means of killing me, because your wife asked it. But you were betrayed by your own speech. Yes, the proverb is right:

The parrots and the grackle birds
Are caged because they utter words:
The stupid herons go scot-free—
For silence is a master-key.

And again:

However skilful in disguise,
However frightful to the eyes,
Although in tiger-skin arrayed,
The ass was killed—because he brayed."

"How was that?" asked the crocodile. And the monkey told the story of


THE ASS IN THE TIGER-SKIN

There was once a laundryman named Clean-Cloth in a certain town. He had a single donkey who had grown very feeble from lack of fodder.