The Wolf and the Lamb

A wolf, spotting a lamb drinking peacefully from a stream downstream of him, decided he wanted to eat it but needed some excuse to justify the attack. "You are muddying my water," he snarled, "and I cannot drink it clean."

The lamb, confused but polite, pointed out that since he was drinking downstream of the wolf, he could not possibly be dirtying water flowing from above him — the logic was plainly on his side.

The wolf, undeterred, simply switched excuses. "Then it was you who insulted me last year," he growled. The lamb gently explained he had not even been born a year ago. Frustrated at running out of excuses, the wolf finally snapped, "Well, it was someone in your family, then — it makes no difference," and ate him anyway, proving that a determined bully will always invent a reason, however absurd, when he has already decided on the outcome.