                  THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

   Once upon a time . . . in the forest lived a wolf, known to be savage and 
ruthless. One day, feeling thirsty, the wolf went down to a stream, and as he 
drank the sparkling water, he saw a lamb drinking, further downstream. The 
minute he set eyes on the hapless lamb, he decided to make a meal of it. "A 
nice plump lamb! Fine and tender! Yummy! That will be deliclous! I haven't had
such luck in ages! Now, I must find an excuse for picking a quarrel, so that 
nobody can accuse me of gobbling it unjustly!"
   Unaware of the wolf, the lamb was still happily sipping the water when it 
heard a deep growl from above its head.
   "You down there! You're muddying my drinking water!"
   The lamb gasped in surprise: "I'm sorry, Mr. Wolf, but I can t possibly be 
muddying your drinking water. I'm below you and the water is flowing downhill,
not up!"
   The wicked wolf was taken aback by this reply, but only for an instant. He 
quickly hit upon another excuse to be angry. "I hear you went around six 
months ago telling people that I'm violent and a bully!"
   At that, the now frightened lamb began to tremble, and it replied in a tiny
voice: "How can you believe such a thing, Mr. Wolf? I've never said a bad word
about you! Indeed, I'll be able only to speak well of you in the future." To 
its relief, the lamb remembered that it could prove its innocence. "I wasn't 
even born six months ago! So I couldn't have spread gosslp about you."
   But the wolf was only interested in gobbling up his prey, so he hastily 
broke in: "Well, if it wasn't you, it was your father," and, pouncing on the 
little white lamb, he quickly ate it.
   Alas and alack! Innocence does not always save us from the clutches of a
tyrant.
