gentleman."

Then the old man said, "What are you after now?" and the Lion asked if
he had seen Ananzi pass that way, but the old man said, "No, that fellow
Ananzi is always meddling with some one; what mischief has he been up to
now?"

Then the Lion told him, but the old man said it was no use to follow him
any more, for he would never catch him, and so the Lion wished him
good-day, and turned and went home again.




VI

THE GRATEFUL FOXES


One fine spring day two friends went out to a moor to gather fern,
attended by a boy with a bottle of wine and a box of provisions. As they
were straying about, they saw at the foot of a hill two foxes that had
brought out their cub to play; and whilst they looked on, struck by the
strangeness of the sight, three children came up from a neighbouring
village with baskets in their hands, on the same errand as themselves.
As soon as the children saw the foxes, they picked up a bamboo stick and
took the creatures stealthily in the rear; and when the old foxes took
to flight, they surrounded them and beat them with the stick, so that
they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them; but two of the
boys held down the cub, and, seizing it by the scruff of the neck, went