ONCE UPON a time there was an old tortoise.  The old tortoise liked playing his flute.  He made beautiful music with it.

     One day he was playing his flute near the river.

     Suddenly the flute fell out of his hands.  He thought that it had fallen into the river.  He went into the water to look for it, but he could not find it.  When he came out of the river again, he heard the sound of music.  He looked up into the tree above him.

     A bad monkey had stolen the flute when the Tortoise had dropped it.  He would not gave it back to poor Tortoise.  Poor Tortoise asked him and asked him for it.

     Then Tortoise started to cry.  He loved his flute.  Crab, who lived in the river, heard him crying.

     "Why are you crying, my friend?"  Crab asked Tortoise.

     "Listen to that music," answered Tortoise.  "Monkey has stolen my beautiful flute."

     "You wait under the tree," said Crab.  "I will climb the tree and make Monkey give it back to you.  When it drops, you must catch it and hide it."

Then he pinched Monkey

     Tortoise stood at the bottom of the tree and watched clever Crab climb up it.  He climbed very quietly.  At last he saw Monkey.  He was sitting on a branch, and playing the flute.  Then he pinched Monkey.  He pinched him very hard!

     "Ow, ow!" cried Monkey.  He did not know what had hurt him so much.  He dropped the flute and turned to see what had bitten him.  But Crab was hiding under big leaf.  Monkey could see nothing.  He ran away, crying as he went, "Oh dear! Oh dear me!  Something has pinched me.  It hurts.  Oh! It hurts."

     Tortoise caught the flute when it fell, and he hid it under a rock.  Crab climbed down the tree and met Tortoise.

     "Thank you, Crab," said Tortoise were very good friends.  Each evening Tortoise played his flute and Crab danced on the sand by the river.  Monkeys could only shout from the tree tops.  He could not sing, he had no flute, and he did not want to dance!