ging tool about?" "Indeed there is," said Crop-Ear. "Here is a handy pickaxe, solid iron." "In that case," said the guest, "you and I must wake early, so as to follow their tracks together, while the footprints still dirty the floor."
Now when I heard the villain's speech fall like a thunderbolt, I thought: "Ah, this spells ruin for me. For his words imply something more. Just as he has marked my hoard, so he will surely discover my fortress, also. Of this his implied meaning convinces me. For the proverb says:
Shrewd characters at sight
Can estimate aright
Their man, as some are deft
To gauge an ounce by heft.
And again:
The budding fancy first betrays
The character that strives
For birth as recompense of good
Or ill in former lives:
No marking tail has grown, yet when
You see the beggar pick
His mincing steps about the pond,
You cry: 'A peacock chick!'"
So I was terrified, deserted the beaten track to my fortress, and with my followers started on another track.
Then a prodigious cat met us, and seeing the whole pack before him, pounced into our midst. And the mice who survived the slaughter scolded me for picking a bad trail, and sought shelter in the old fortress,
