There once lived a farmer who understood the language of animals. He had obtained this knowledge on condition that he would never reveal its possession, and with the further provision that should he ever prove false to his oath, the penalty would be certain death.

One day he chanced to overhear a conversation between his ox and his horse. The ox had just come in from a hard day's work in the rain.

"Oh," sighed the ox, looking over to the horse, "how fortunate you are to have been born a horse and not an ox. When the weather is bad you are kept in the stable, well fed, groomed every morning, and caressed every evening. Oh that I were a horse!"

"What you say is true," replied the horse, in a judicial tone, "but you are very stupid to work so hard."

"You do not know what it is to be goaded with a spear and howled at, or you would not accuse me of being stupid to work so hard," replied the ox.

"Then why don't you feign illness?" asked the horse.

On the following day the ox determined to try this deceit, but he was stung with remorse when he saw the horse led out to take his place at the plough. In the evening, when the horse was brought to the stable very tired, the ox sympathized with him, and regretted that he himself was the cause of that tiredness. But at the same time he could not help expressing his astonishment at the horse for working so hard.

"Ah, my friend, I had to work hard," answered the horse. "I can't bear the whip; the thought of its hideous crack! crack! makes me shiver even now."

"But leaving that aside, my poor horned friend," proceeded the horse, "I am now most anxious for you. I heard the master say to-night that if you are not well in the morning, the butcher will come and slaughter you."

"You need not worry about me, friend horse," said the ox, "as I much prefer the yoke to chewing the cud of selfreproach."

At this point the farmer left the animals and entered his home, smiling as he did so at his own craft in re-establishing, if not contentment, at least resignation to their fate, among the occupants of his stable. Meeting his wife, she at once inquired as to the cause of his happy smile. He put her off, first with one excuse, then with another, but to no purpose: the more he protested, the stronger her inquisitiveness grew. Her unsatisfied curiosity at length made her ill. The en deavours of the numerous doctors brought to her assistance were as futile as the incantations of the witches from far and near, and as powerless to remove the spell as were the amulets, the charms, and the abracadabras composed and written by holy men. Her unsatisfied curiosity gnawed at her very vitals, and she visibly pined away. The poor farmer was distracted; and, rather than see her die, he at last decided to tell her his secret, and thus forfeit his own life in order to save hers. Deeply dejected, for no man quits this planet without a pang, he sat at the window gazing for the last time, as he thought, on the familiar surroundings. Of a sudden he noticed his favourite chanticleer, followed by his numerous harem, sadly walking about without his accustomed strut, only allowing his favourites to eat the morsels he discovered, and ruthlessly driving the others away. To one of those "others" he said: "Allaha Teshekkur ederim [Thanks be to God] I am not like our poor master, to be ruled by one of you or even by a score of you. He, poor man, will die today for revealing his secret knowledge to save his wife's life."

"What is the secret knowledge?" asked one of the wives; whereupon chanticleer flew at her and pecked her mercilessly, saying after each vigorous peck, "That's the secret; and if our master only treated the mistress as I treat you, he would not need to give up his life to-day." And, as if maddened at the thought, he pecked them all in turn.

The master, seeing and appreciating the effects of this cure from the window, went to his wife and treated her in precisely the same manner. And this effected what neither doctors, sages, nor holy men could do it completely cured her.