Having done this, Mister Fox then seized the gray goose in his mouth, sprang with them both over the paling and ran away, to the amazement of the moon, who burst into tears and said it had never shone upon such an impudent and wicked fox since the world began.

Now, although the black duck was carried off with her legs hanging dangling down O! she was not dead, but continued to quack! quack! quack! so fast and so loud that you would have thought she wished to do as much quacking as possible before she died. This made the other birds and beasts in the farmer’s yard very sad, and they all began to howl and scream so loudly that the fox thought the whole country side would be roused out of their beds to give him chase, and once or twice he thought of dropping his burden, but, when he thought of the hungry little foxes in his den, he resolved to do his best to carry home their supper.

“Hold your noisy tongue, will you?” he said to the duck, in a voice of rage.