A fox and stork trade suppers in dishes the other has a hard time using.

One bad turn deserves another.

Aesop For Children

Milo Winter (1919)

The Fox one day thought of a plan to amuse himself at the expense of the Stork, at
whose odd appearance he was always laughing.

“You must come and dine with me today,” he said to the Stork, smiling to himself at the
trick he was going to play. The Stork gladly accepted the invitation and arrived in good
time and with a very good appetite.

Milo Winter (1919)

For dinner the Fox served soup. But it was set out in a very shallow dish, and all the
Stork could do was to wet the very tip of his bill. Not a drop of soup could he get. But
the Fox lapped it up easily, and, to increase the disappointment of the Stork, made a
great show of enjoyment.

The hungry Stork was much displeased at the trick, but he was a calm, even-tempered
fellow and saw no good in flying into a rage. Instead, not long afterward, he invited the
Fox to dine with him in turn. The Fox arrived promptly at the time that had been set,
and the Stork served a fish dinner that had a very appetizing smell. But it was served in
a tall jar with a very narrow neck. The Stork could easily get at the food with his long
bill, but all the Fox could do was to lick the outside of the jar, and sniff at the delicious
odor. And when the Fox lost his temper, the Stork said calmly:
Moral

Do not play tricks on your neighbors unless you can stand the same treatment yourself.

Samuel Croxall

THE Fox invited the Stork to dinner; and,

being disposed to divert himself at the expence of his guest, provided nothing for the
entertainment, but a soup, in a wide shallow dish. This himself could lap up with a
great deal of ease, but the Stork, who could but just dip in the point of his bill, was not a
bit the better all the while: however, in a few days after, he returned the compliment,
and invited the Fox; but suffered nothing to be brought to table but some minced meat
in a glass jar; the neck of which was so deep and so narrow, that though the Stork with
his long bill made a shift to fill his belly, all that the Fox, who was very hungry, could
do, was to lick the brims, as the Stork slabbered them with his eating. Reynard was
heartily vexed at first: but when he came to take his leave, owned ingenuously, that he
had been used as he deserved; and that he had no reason to take any treatment ill, of
which himself had set the example.

THE APPLICATION

C. Whittingham (1814)
It is mighty imprudent, as well as inhuman and uncivil, to affront any body; and
whoever takes the liberty to exercise his witty talents that way, must not think much of
it, if he meets with reprisals. Indeed, if all those who are thus paid in their own coin,
would take it with the same frankness the Fox did, the matter would not be much; but,
we are too apt, when the jest comes to be turned home upon ourselves, to think that
insufferable in another, which we looked upon as pretty and facetious, when the
humour was our own. The rule of doing as we would be done by, so proper to be our
model in every transaction of life, may more particularly be of use in this respect:
because people seldom or never receive any advantage by these little ludicrous
impositions, and yet, if they were to ask themselves the question, would find, that
another’s using them in the same manner would be very displeasing.