A duck named Francis, a brilliantly white feathered fellow with a sly disposition, was in debt to an even-tempered but not to be trifled with mallard named Fred to the tune of $100 American. As a result Francis, non-confrontational by nature, had been avoiding Fred, and Fred knew it, and Fred wanted to do something about it. So Fred started scheming. He knew that Francis had a particular weakness for crumb cake, and he also knew one of Francis' good friends Nicholas was not particularly astute and couldn't keep a secret. So Fred sought out Nicholas at the local watering hole, Perry's pond, and just so happened to drop the innocent little detail that Hoffman's Bakery, which is located on the eastern side of Perry's pond, would be throwing out a large batch of crumb cake that had gone unsold, and that Mr. Hoffman himself had promised to share some of the crumb cake with the ducks at the pond that afternoon. This sent Nicholas into a tittering display of wing flapping highlighted by several loud quacks that Fred found rather annoying, but then everything Nicholas did Fred found annoying.
After extricating himself from his seemingly long conversation with Nicholas, Fred quickly flew over to the area of the pond just behind Hoffman's Bakery and found a discrete spot behind some bushes where he could hide and wait for Francis to arrive. And a scant 30 minutes later Francis did arrive along with Nicholas and 20 other ducks, who had only too easily overheard Nicholas' excited chattering about free crumb cake at the pond. Now Fred had his chance, he flew up from behind the bushes and landed right in front of Francis and straight-forwardly asked him "where's my money, and why have you been avoiding me?" Though seemingly benign in nature this mild excitement was too much for Nicholas given his steady diet of crumb cake and high levels of stress from being in debt and not confronting his problems. He promptly keeled over and died on the spot.
The End
