Context: Although the original group of tales attributed to Aesop does not include this story, it does include a similar one in which the cat tries to outwit the mice who have retreated to their holes. The cat plays dead and hangs himself by his tail from a hook. The mice come out and say, "Very good, but I won't come near you even if they make a moneybag of you." In the popular fable, however, the mice believe they have a solution to their problem. One mouse says, "You will all agree . . . that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. . . . I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighborhood."