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Once upon a time there was a young man named Ch'ê, who was not particularly well off, but at the same time very fond of his wine; so much so that without his three stoups of liquor every night he was quite unable to sleep, and bottles were seldom absent from the head of his bed.

His wealth thus began to increase; he bought two hundred acres of rich land, and always planted his crops, corn, millet, or what not, upon the advice of the fox secretly given him beforehand. The fox looked on Ch'ê's wife as a sister, and on Ch'ê's children as his own; but when subsequently Ch'ê died it never came to the house again. The Alchemist

About midnight the fox stretched itself, and Ch'ê cried, "Well, to be sure, you've had a nice sleep!" He then drew off the clothes, and beheld an elegant young man in a scholar's dress; but the young man jumped up, and, making a low obeisance, returned his host many thanks for not cutting off his head.

"Oh," replied Ch'ê, "I am not averse to liquor myself; in fact they say I'm too much given to it. If you have no objection, we'll be a pair of bottle-and-glass chums." So they lay down and went to sleep again, Ch'ê urging the young man to visit him often, and saying that they must have faith in each other.

Next evening, when he arrived, he said to Ch'ê, "Two miles down toward the south-east you will find some silver lying by the wayside. Go early in the morning and get it." So on the morrow Ch'ê set off, and actually obtained two lumps of silver, with which he bought some choice morsels to help them out with their wine that evening.

The fox now told him that there was a vault in his backyard which he ought to open; and when he did so he found therein more than a hundred strings of cash. "Now then," cried Ch'ê, delighted, "I shall have no more anxiety about funds for buying wine with all this in my purse!" "Ah," replied the fox, "the water in a puddle is not inexhaustible. I must do something further for you."

Cardan writes: "Vi supplico per l'amor che mi portati, et per l'amicitia ch'è tra noi, che spero durara fin che viveremo, che mi mandati sciolta questa questione. 1 cubo piu 3. cose egual

The fox agreed to this, but when Ch'ê awoke in the morning his bedfellow had already disappeared. So he prepared a goblet of first-rate wine in expectation of his friend's arrival, and at nightfall sure enough he came. They then sat together drinking, and the fox cracked so many jokes that Ch'ê said he regretted he had not known him before.

Some days afterward the fox said to Ch'ê, "Buckwheat is very cheap in the market just now. Something is to be done in that line." Accordingly Ch'ê bought over forty tons, and thereby incurred general ridicule; but by and by there was a bad drought, and all kinds of grain and beans were spoilt. Only buckwheat would grow, and Ch'ê sold off his stock at a profit of 1000 per cent.

Dante nevertheless introduces him in his Inferno, his head severed from his body, and explaining his doom thus: "Sappi ch'i'son Bertram dal Bornio, quelli Che diedi al re Giovanni i ma' comforti I' feci'l padre e'l figlio in se ribelli Achitofel non fe pir d'Absalone E di David co' malvagi pungelli Perch' i' parti cosi giunte persone Partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso Dal suo principio ch'e n questo troncone cosi s'osserva in me lo contrapasso."