A dog, crossing a small rivulet, with a piece of flesh in his mouth, which he had stolen from a butcher's shop, saw his own shadow represented in the clear mirror of the limpid stream; and, believing it to be another dog who was carrying another piece of flesh, he could not forbear catching at it, but was so far from getting anything by his greedy design, that he dropped the piece he had in his mouth, which immediately sank to the bottom, and was irrecoverably lost.
MORAL.
It is the just punishment of greediness to lose the substance by grasping at the shadow; while the man who would take what does not belong to him deserves to lose what he has.