The Dog and The Shadow

A big dog stole a piece of bone from a kitchen. It began to run very fast. It came to a stream. The stream was bridged by a plank. As he walked across the plank, he saw a very strange sight.


The water in the stream was clear and quiet. It saw another dog with another bone in its mouth in the water.


“Ho!..." said the dog.


“What is this? Another dog with a piece of bone down in water? With a much bigger piece than mine! I will take it from the dog."


But the dog did not realize that the dog in the water was its own reflection.


He opened its mouth to catch the piece of bone from the dog in the water.


Alas! Down fell his own dinner with a loud splash…The gentle waving movement of the water cleared. The dog was staring up out of the water with empty jaws.


It was his shadow that he saw all the time and the shadow of his piece of bone too.