"Yes, I can," said the Minister.
So one night he tied up to the ceiling of a room a parcel containing peas mixed
with diamonds, and let in two men, one of whom believed in luck and the other
in human effort alone. The former quietly laid himself down on the ground; the
latter after a series of efforts reached the parcel, and feeling in the dark the peas
and the stones, ate the former, one by one, and threw down the latter at his
companion, saying, "Here are the stones for your idleness." The man below
received them in his blanket.
In the morning the king and the minister came to the room and bade each take to
himself what he had got. The Man of Effort found he had nothing beyond the
peas he had eaten. The Man of Luck quietly walked away with the diamonds.
The Minister said to the King: "Sire, there is such a thing as luck; but it is as rare
as peas mixed with diamonds. So I would say: 'Let none hope to live by luck.'"
The Fox and the Crabs
One day a Fox seated himself on a stone by a stream and wept aloud. The Crabs
in the holes around came up to him and said: "Friend, why are you wailing so
loud?"
"Alas!" said the Fox, "I have been turned by my kindred out of the wood, and do
not know what to do."
"Why were you turned out?" asked the Crabs in a tone of pity.
"Because," said the Fox, sobbing, "they said they should go out to-night hunting
Crabs by the stream, and I said it would be a pity to lull such pretty little
creatures."
"Where will you go hereafter?" said the Crabs.
"Where I can get work," said the Fox; "for I would not go to my kindred again,
come what would."
Then the Crabs held a meeting, and came to the conclusion that, as the Fox had