THE STORY OF FAUST AND MARGUERITE 195 



the owner of the foxes, because the lad could think 

 of no good explanation that the neighbors would 

 accept and concluded that the best policy was to 

 call that incident closed. For a long time he stood 

 leaning on his spade lost in thought; at last it oc- 

 curred to him that, maybe, 



THE FOXES WERE NOT CHAINED, 



so stooping down and gathering up the chains he 

 discovered that their ends were fastened to nothing. 

 By slyly watching the animals he discovered that 

 they freed themselves by twisting the chain round 

 and round until it made a hard lump over the 

 swiveled spring snap (which was fastened by being 

 strung on a ring bolt in the side of the box) . The 

 twisting of the chain around the snap forced the 

 spring back and unfastened it. 



It was no doubt an accident that first freed the 

 foxes, but after they had once learned how to do 

 it, it was probably purposely and consciously done. 

 To show the limitation of their instinct or their 

 reason, however, when the two animals were 

 chained together they 



NEVER COULD LEARN TO GO THROUGH THE SAME 

 OPENING 



between the bars of the iron fence of the front yard 

 and thereafter they never succeeded in reaching the 

 neighbor's hen roost, or going further than where 

 their chain caught on the fence. 



