It was a warm afternoon. Lenny the Lamb had strayed away from the fold and was drinking naively at a little stream that flowed through a meadow near his mother’s pasture.
Suddenly a hungry Wolf came by and seeing Lenny bent upon his prey. But there’s a law which no wolf can break, and that is he must carry out something to show to his family of cubs, which are waiting with open mouths at the door of their cave for their fangs and their father’s first meal.
“There’s a young lamb on the wrong side of the stream now,” said the Wolf to himself. “I can manage that for my supper and so cut a feast for my cubs. But I must first make it a point of honour to give a plausible reason why I took my life.”
So he went up to Lenny and said in a very gruff voice, “How dare you muddle the water from which I am about to drink?”
“Nay, master,” said Lenny meekly, “if the water be muddied, it must be by your own chin, for it can never be by mine, who am but drinking at the distance of this very hour from you.”
“Well, then,” said the Wolf, “it’s no matter if I did, for it was over a month ago you spoke ill of me.”
“But that cannot be,” said Lenny, “for I am only six weeks old. I was not born a month ago.”
“It matters not,” said the Wolf, “but you are in my power, as every one must be who talks after his betters in this manner.”
So with that he sprang upon Lenny, and ate him all up, but he took care first of all to crush his bone in his mouth.