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Page:Skeealyn Aesop a Selection of Aesops Fables Translated Into Manx-Gaelic Together with a Few Poems.djvu/67

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THE FOX WITHOUT HIS TAIL.


A fox, caught in a trap, escaped with the loss of his tail. Henceforth, feeling his life a burden from the shame and ridicule to which he was exposed, he schemed to bring all the other foxes into a like condition with himself, that in the common loss he might the better conceal his own loss. He assembled a good many foxes, and publicly advised them to cut off their tails, saying: "That they would not only look much better without them, but that they would get rid of the weight of the brush, which was a very great inconvenience." One of them, interrupting him, said : "If you had not yourself lost your tail, my friend, you would not thus counsel us."