is not much behind him.' So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to

their village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and

acquaintances what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each

crying up the other's perfection in braying. The whole story came to

be known and spread abroad through the villages of the

neighbourhood; and the devil, who never sleeps, with his love for

sowing dissensions and scattering discord everywhere, blowing mischief

about and making quarrels out of nothing, contrived to make the people