"Ha, ha! my friend," shouted the monkey, "the things that you were frightened of were two poor lean dogs, that went by here yesterday. What a great coward you are!"
"Coward or no coward, they would have killed me and eaten me."
"Eaten you! Oh, you great silly goose! With all your travels you don't know any more than that dogs can't kill you. You can kill dogs."
"I don't believe you," protested the tiger stolidly.
"Don't then," said the monkey, laconically, as he turned a somersault.
There was silence for a while. The tiger sat down dejectedly while the monkey watched him through the leaves and chuckled maliciously, continuing to eat noiselessly as he watched.
Having once had sufficient himself, he was not indisposed to be a little generous, so, taking some berries in one brown paw, he climbed down nearer the ground, and tendered them to his melancholy friend as an overture, saying as he did so--
"I can never forget the loss of my dear home," was the melancholy reply.
"Nonsense," retorted the other one, who was practical, not sentimental, and who had a hundred homes all equally comfortable in the forest.
"It's no nonsense," said the tiger, shaking his head.
"Well," exclaimed the monkey, after a few seconds, "if you really are afraid to go back, which is ridiculous, I will come with you, for I fear no dogs."
"I wouldn't trust you," replied the tiger, ungraciously. "You have played me a scurvy trick or two before now."
The monkey became indignant, saying, "It is just like your mean, suspicious nature to speak so to a friend who, out of pure good nature, is willing to do you a turn. What motive can I have save generosity?--no good can accrue to me personally."
The tiger grunted an unwilling assent, and began to think seriously of accepting the offer.
"Well," he said at last, "if you will consent to be tied to my tail, and to go in first to the den, my back being to you, and face the dog, I am willing."
"Agreed," answered the monkey, who was an interfering little creature, and was longing to have his finger in the pie.
So they went, the monkey tied to his friend's tail, chattering all the way.
"Now," said the tiger, who was sullen and afraid as they came in sight of his lair, "if you don't behave fairly to me I will murder you, that's all."