"Thus," remarks the story-teller, "fools do themselves injury by asking
questions and giving answers without reflection"; he then proceeds to
relate a story in illustration of the apothegm that "association with
fools brings prosperity to no man":

A certain fool, while going to another village, forgot the way. And when
he asked the way, the people said to him, "Take the path that goes up by
the tree on the bank of the river." Then the fool went and got on the
trunk of that tree, and said to himself, "The men told me that my way
lay up the trunk of this tree." And as he went on climbing up it, the
bough at the end bent with his weight, and it was all he could do to
avoid falling by clinging to it. While he was clinging to it, there came
that way an elephant that had been drinking water, with his driver on
his back. And the fool called to him, saying, "Great sir, take me down."
The elephant-driver laid hold of him by the feet with both his hands, to
take him down from the tree. Meanwhile the elephant went on, and the
driver found himself clinging to the feet of the fool, who was clinging
to the end of the tree. Then said the fool to the driver, "Sing
something, in order that the people may hear, and come at once and take
us down." So the elephant-driver, thus appealed to, began to sing, and
he sang so sweetly that the fool was much pleased; and in his desire to
applaud him, he forgot what he was about, let go his hold of the tree,
and prepared to clap him with both his hands; and immediately he and the
elephant-driver fell into the river and were drowned.

The germ of all stories of this class is perhaps found in the
_Játakas_, or Buddhist Birth Stories: A pair of geese resolve to
migrate to another country, and agree to carry with them a tortoise,
their intimate friend, taking the ends of a stick between their bills,
and the tortoise grasping it by the middle with his mouth. As they are