At midnight a Fox found himself in a dark forest, not a glimmer of light was anywhere to be seen, and he could hardly pick his way through the thick underbrush. “What shall I do?” he said. “I am sure to miss my way and perhaps never find it again; perhaps I may even fall into the snare or net of some hunter.”
Just then he came across an Owl perched on a branch of a tree, and having nothing to fear from an Owl in such deep darkness, he called out, “Good-evening, Mr. Owl. These dark nights are very trying, I think. What say you? And yet they say that you see better in the night than in the daytime.”
“I do, indeed,” replied the Owl. “I’m not afraid of being out in the dark, as you seem to be.”
“But what is that to you or to anybody else? To me this darkness is an evil, for I cannot see my way; but don’t let me disturb you. By the way, do you know where the lightest part of the forest is?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Owl. “If you go on about twenty paces, you will come to a large open space where the moonlight falls; go on and you will be out of the dark place in no time.”
“Much obliged to you, Mr. Owl,” said the Fox, “but I am making my way in quite the opposite direction, in fact I want to go deeper, and to grop my way further into the dark.”
“Far be it from me, Mr. Fox,” said the Owl, “to prevent your going where you please in woods that do not belong to me, but I may tell you that I recently heard the keeper say that a certain Mr. Fox of the north quarter has recently made heavy inroads on his fowl, and he means to catch him in his own net. Good-night to you.”
“Good-night, Mr. Owl,” said the Fox. And he withdrew in a great hurry, all astonishment at the sharpness of the Owl.
Cunning can often outwit itself.