Loss of Gains

How a fool forfeits what he has already won. A monkey on a rose-apple tree befriends a crocodile, sharing the sweet fruit until the crocodile's wife conceives a craving for the monkey's heart. Invited across the water to dinner, the monkey realizes the plot mid-river and saves himself with a single quick lie — that he has left his heart back in the tree. The book turns on presence of mind: the gains you hold can be lost in a careless moment, and recovered only by wit.