The beasts once chose an ape for their king. From morn till night he would play all his droll tricks to please them, and they could not rest till they had put him on a throne, with a king’s crown on his head. They did all they could to swell his pomp, and the beasts took him to be as wise as he was great--all but the fox, who knew what a bad choice they had made. One day, as the fox was on his way to the court, he saw a trap in a ditch with nuts, figs, and dates for a bait. He told the ape of all these good things, and said that as they were found on a piece of waste land, they were the king’s by right. The ape, who did not dream of fraud, went to claim them; but as soon as he had laid his paw on the bait, he was caught in the trap. Stung with rage and pain, he gave the fox all the hard names he could think of; but all the fox said was, “Are you a king, and not up to trap?” THE FROG, THE MOUSE, AND THE HAWK. By chance a mouse made friends with a frog, who spent his life for the most part in a pool. The frog one day, by way of sport, bound the foot of the mouse to his own, and step by step led him to the pool in which he spent most of his time, till at last he got to the brink, when he gave a leap which took them both in the midst of the pond. The frog, who was fond of a swim, went now here, now there, with a croak which would seem to say that all was right, and that he thought he had done a great feat. But the poor mouse could not stand it long, as the dry ground was his home, and he was soon seen to float on the pool quite dead, but still bound fast to the frog. By and by a hawk stuck his claws in the mouse, and flew off with him; but the frog, who could not get loose from the mouse, had to share the same fate, and the hawk made a meal of both. Harm hatch, harm catch. [Illustration: The Frog, the Mouse, and the Hawk.--Page 63. _Æsop._] THE JUDGE AND THE POOR MAN.