There was a king who built a school for dancing monkeys.
"Let them be educated in all the dances!" he proclaimed.
So the monkeys studied all the dances.
Finally the time came for the royal performance.
The king was delighted to see his monkeys dancing so beautifully, and the audience applauded every dance.
A joker in the crowd, however, decided to throw some nuts onto the stage. The monkeys went wild, forgetting all their dances as they scrambled to grab the nuts. Then the monkeys even started throwing nutshells at the audience.
That was the end of the dancing monkeys.
Inspired by: Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists by Roger L'Estrange, 375.
Notes: This is Perry 463.
Here is an illustration by Arthur Rackham:
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