Once upon a time, there was a proud samurai. One day it so happened, that he had to spend the night at a farm house in the country. The farmer asked him to cover himself with the straw matting as it was too cold. “I have fought so many battles, and when I slept in the open in the battlefield, I never needed anything over me,” boasted the samurai, and he lay down to sleep on the bare floor. At night, it became too cold and he felt uncomfortable. When he could no longer bear the cold floor, he woke the farmer up. The samurai asked him, “Farmer, do you make the rats in this house wash their feet?” “No, we don’t do anything like that,” replied the farmer. “Don’t you? Then, they will spoil my clothes when they run over them. Get me a straw mat and I will put my clothes on it to protect them,” the samurai said.
The Proud Samurai
