Aesop’s Fables: Expect No Reward for Serving the Wicked

"The Wolf and the Crane," illustrated by Milo Winter, from “The Aesop for Children,” 1919. PD-US

A Wolf had been feasting too greedily, and a bone had stuck crosswise in his throat. He could get it neither up nor down, and of course he could not eat a thing. Naturally that was an awful state of affairs for a greedy Wolf.

So away he hurried to the Crane. He was sure that she, with her long neck and bill, would easily be able to reach the bone and pull it out.