the Sage, who gruffly called after her.

    When you have caught your Fish, it may be wiser to cook it and eat it.

   he sun was setting when the Damsel next came to the Cave. She had a pet falcon with her, and kept caressing it as she propounded her question.

   "There lived a woman in a Castle who had three Knights devoted to her. She loved one, and her vanity was pleased with the other two. While she continued to play with them all, they all loved her to distraction; but presently her preference for the one Knight became evident, and the two others, after doing their utmost to supplant the third without success, at last left the Castle and rode away. They

   were no sooner gone, and things had become quiet, and no combats occurred to interrupt the lovers' intercourse, when the chosen Knight began to weary, and he, too, at last rode away, although before he had been the most ardent of all. Why was this, Sage? And what should the woman do?"

   "It was because the Knight had won the prize and the woman gave him no trouble to keep it," replied the Sage. "He was bound to weary. When a man's profession is fighting and he has fought hard and succeeded, after sufficient rest he wishes to fight again. So if the woman wants her lover back, she had better first summon the other two."

   For once the Damsel had nothing to say, and had no excuse to remain longer in the cave.

   The Sage, however, was not in the mind to let her go so soon, so he began a question:

   "Why do you caress that bird so much? It appears completely indifferent to you. Surely that is waste of time?"

   "It is agreeable to waste time," replied the Damsel.

   "Upon an insensible object?"

   "Yes."

   "More so than if it returned your caresses?"

   "Probably—there is the speculation. It might one day respond, while certainly if it repaid warmly my love now, one day it would not. Nothing lasts in this world. You have told me so yourself."

   The Sage was nettled.

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