Perrin's The Miser And The Magpie

As a miser sat at his desk, counting over his heaps of gold, a magpie, eloped from his cage, picking up a guinea, and hopped away with it. The miser, who never failed to count his money over a second time, immediately missed the piece, and rising up from his seat in the upmost consternation, observed the felon hiding in the crevice of the floor. Art thou, cried he, that worst of thieves, who hast robbed me of my gold, without the plea of necessity, and without regard to its proper use? But thy life shall atone for so preposterous a villainy. Soft words good master, quoth the magpie. Have I then injured you in any other sense than you defraud the public? And am I not using your money in the same manner you do yourself? If I must lose my life for hiding a single guinea, what do you, I pray, deserve, who secrete so many thousands?