Checking in with Aesop.........................

                            The Ass and His Shadow

A Traveler hired an Ass to convey him to a distant place.  The day being intensely hot, and the sun shining in its strength, the Traveler stopped to rest, and sought shelter from the heat under the Shadow of the Ass.  As this afforded protection for only one, and as the Traveler and the owner of the Ass both claimed it, a violent dispute arose between them as to which of them had the right to the Shadow.  The owner maintained that he had let the Ass alone, and not the Shadow.  The Traveler asserted that he had, with the hire of the Ass, hired his Shadow as well.  The quarrel proceeded from words to blows, and while the men fought, the Ass galloped off.

          In quarreling about the shadow we often lose the substance.