' So he dug a hole at
the foot of the palm-tree and took up his lodging there, he and
his wife. Moreover, he made a place of prayer beside the hole, in
which he shut himself and made a show of piety and abstinence and
renunciation of the world. The male pigeon saw him praying and
worshipping and inclined to him for his much devoutness and said
to him, 'How long hast thou been thus?' 'Thirty years,' replied
the hedgehog. 'What is thy food?' asked the bird and the other
answered, 'What falls from the palm-tree.' 'And what is thy
clothing?' asked the pigeon. 'Prickles,' replied the hedgehog; 'I
profit by their roughness.' 'And why,' continued the bird, 'hast
thou chosen this place rather than another?' 'I chose it,'
answered the hedgehog, 'that I might guide the erring into
the right way and teach the ignorant.' 'I had thought thee
other-guise than this,' rejoined the pigeon; but now I feel a
yearning for that which is with thee.' Quoth the hedgehog, 'I
fear lest thy deed belie thy speech and thou be even as the
husbandman, who neglected to sow in season, saying, "I fear lest
the days bring me not to my desire, and I shall only waste my
substance by making haste to sow." When the time of harvest came
and he saw the folk gathering in their crops, he repented him of
what he had lost by his tardiness and died of chagrin and
vexation.
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