The Cat and the Mice

A certain house was much infested by mice. The owner brought home a cat, a famous mouser, who soon made such havoc among the little folk that those who were left stayed closely in the upper shelves. Then the cat grew hungry and thin, and, driven by her wit's end, hung by her hind legs to a peg in the wall and pretended to be dead in order that the mice would no longer be afraid to come near her.

An old mouse came to the edge of the shelf, and, seeing through the trick, cried out, "Ah ha, Mrs. Pussy! We should not come near you, even if your skin were stuffed with straw."

Moral: Old birds are not to be caught with chaff.