"Answered the crane: 'Thinkest thou so? Am I thy dear uncle? Thou meanest me to understand, I suppose, that I am thy slave, who has to lift thee up and carry thee about with him, where thou pleasest! Now cast thine eye upon that heap of fish-bones at the root of yonder varana-tree. Just as I have eaten those fish, every one of them, just so will I devour thee also!' 14 'Ah! those fishes got eaten through their own stupidity,' answered the lobster, 'but I am not going to let thee kill me. On the contrary, it is thou that I am going to destroy. For thou, in thy folly, hast not seen that I have outwitted thee. If we die, we both die together; for I will cut off this head of thine and cast it to the ground!' So saying, he gave the crane's neck a pinch with his claws as with a vise. 15 "Then gasping, and with tears trickling from his eyes, and trembling with the fear of death, the crane besought the lobster, saying: 'O, my Lord! Indeed I did not intend to eat thee. Grant me my life!' 16 'Very well! fly down and put me into the lake,' replied the lobster. 17 "And the crane turned round and stepped down into the lake, to place the lobster on the mud at its edge. Then the lobster cut the crane's neck through as clean as one would cut a lotus-stalk with a hunting-knife, and then entered the water!" 18 When the Teacher had finished this discourse, he added: "Not now only was this man outwitted in this way, but in other existences, too, by his own intrigues." 19 LXVIII. FOUR KINDS OF MERIT. There was a rich man who used to invite all the Brahmans of the neighborhood to his house, and, giving them rich gifts, offered great sacrifices to the gods. 1 And the Blessed One said: "If a man each month repeat a thousand sacrifices and give offerings without ceasing, he is not equal to him who but for one moment fixes his mind upon righteousness." 2 The world-honored Buddha continued: "There are four kinds of offering: first, when the gifts are large and the merit small; secondly, when the gifts are small and the merit small; thirdly, when the gifts are small and the merit large; and fourthly, when the gifts are large and the merit is also large. 3 "The first is the case of the deluded man who takes away life for the purpose of sacrificing to the gods, accompanied by carousing and feasting. Here the gifts are great, but the merit is small indeed. 4 "The gifts are small and the merit is also small, when from covetousness and an evil heart a man keeps to himself a part of that which he intends to offer. 5