Story of Dog and his shadow from Fables of Aesop
A dog once had a piece of meat.
He was going home with it.
On the way he had to go across a bridge over some water.
He looked into the water, and there he thought he saw another dog.
The dog looked like himself and had a piece of meat in his mouth, too.
It was his shadow in the water.
“That meat looks good. I want it,” said the dog.
“My piece is not big enough. I will take the meat away from that other dog.”
So he barked at the other dog.
As he opened his mouth to bark, his piece of meat fell into the water.
“Splash!” it went, and that was the last he ever saw of it.
“If I had let that dog keep his piece of meat, I should not have lost my own,” he said.
It is very foolish to be greedy.