English Audio Request

There was once a king in the Animal Kingdom who thought he was the cleverest animal in the world. To prove this, he ordered the rest of the animals to make a dress of mist for the King. “If someone can do it, then he is cleverer than me,” the King said.
The tortoise was the first to try. He promised to have the dress ready in seven days. A week later, however, he came to the King empty-handed.
The King laughed in triumph. He felt very clever indeed that he had thought up such an impossible task. “Well,” said the King, “you are not clever enough to make a dress of mist for the King. The task is too difficult for you.”
“You need not worry, Your Majesty. You’ll soon have your dress. The only thing I need is thread.”
“If that’s all you need,” said the King in good humour, “you can have all the thread in the world.” And at the King’s order a lot of balls of different thread were put before the tortoise.
“No, no, no,” cried the tortoise. “This will never do. I don’t want ordinary thread to finish the dress of mist. I need thread made from the sun’s rays.”
For a shocked moment the King stared speechless at the tortoise. Twice his mouth opened, but no words came. Then he smiled and said, “I can easily give you what you need. But what’s the use? I don’t want to have this silly dress. You have proved to me that you’re clever enough to make one. This is all I wanted to know.” The King closed his eyes and said with deep pleasure, “Oh, how happy it makes me to know that in my kingdom are the world’s two cleverest animals — you and I!”