ONCE upon a time there was a monkey who was very fond of
cherries. One day he saw a delicious-looking cherry, and came
down from his tree to get it. But the fruit turned out to be in a clear
glass bottle. After some experimentation, the monkey found that
he could get hold of the cherry by putting his hand into the bottle
by way of the neck. As soon as he had done so, he closed his hand
over the cherry; but then he found that he could not withdraw
his fist holding the cherry, because it was larger than the internal
dimension of the neck.
Now all this was deliberate, because the cherry in the bottle was
a trap laid by a monkey-hunter who knew how monkeys think.
The hunter, hearing the monkey’s whimperings, came along
and the monkey tried to run away. But, because his hand was, as
he thought, stuck in the bottle, he could not move fast enough to
escape.
But, as he thought, he still had hold of the cherry. The hunter
picked him up. A moment later he tapped the monkey sharply on
the elbow, making him suddenly relax his hold on the fruit.
The monkey was free, but he was captured. The hunter had used
the cherry and the bottle, but he still had them.