Fox and Geese
"Apparently," said he, "I have been guilty ofsome small grains of unconsidered wisdom, and the same have proven a bitterness to these excellent folk, the which they will not abide. Ah, well! those who produce the Strasburgpâtéand the feather-pillow are prone to regardusas rival creators. I presume it is in course of nature for him who grows the pen to censure the manner of its use."
So speaking, he executed a smile a hand's-breath in extent, and resumed his airy dream of dropping ducats.
For many years an opossum had anointed his tail with bear's oil, but it remained stubbornly bald-headed. At last his patience was exhausted, and he appealed to Bruin himself, accusing him of breaking faith, and calling him a quack.
"Why, you insolent marsupial!" retorted the bear in a rage; "you expect my oil to give you hair upon your tail, when it will not give me even a tail. Why don't you try under-draining, or top-dressing with light compost?"
They said and did a good deal more before the opossum withdrew his cold and barren member from consideration; but the judicious fabulist does not encumber his tale with extraneous matter, lest it be pointless.
"So disreputable a lot as you are I never saw!" said a sleepy rat to the casks in a wine-cellar. "Always making night hideous with your hoops and hollows, and disfiguring the day with your bunged-up appearance. There is no sleeping when once the wine has got into your heads. I'll report you to the butler!"
"The sneaking tale-bearer," said the casks. "Let us beat him with our staves."
"Requiescat in pace," muttered a learned cobweb, sententiously.
"Requires a cat in the place, does it?" shrieked the rat. "Then I'm off!"
To explain all the wisdom imparted by this fable would require the pen of a pig, and volumes of smoke.
A giraffe having trodden upon the tail of a poodle, that animal flew into a blind rage, and wrestled valorously with the invading foot.
"Hullo, sonny!" said the giraffe, looking down, "what are you doing there?"
"I am fighting!" was the proud reply; "but I don't know that it is any of your business."
"Oh, I have no desire to mix in," said the good-natured giraffe. "I never take sides in terrestrial strife. Still, as that is my foot, I think—"
"Eh!" cried the poodle, backing some distance away and gazing upward, shading his eyes with his paw. "You don't mean to say—by Jove it's a fact! Well, that beatsme! A beast of such enormous length—such preposterous duration, as it were—I wouldn't have believed it! Of course I can't quarrel with a non-resident; but why don't you have a local agent on the ground?"
The reply was probably the wisest ever made; but it has not descended to this generation. It had so very far to descend.
A dog having got upon the scent of a deer which a hunter had been dragging home, set off with extraordinary zeal. After measuring off a few leagues, he paused.
"My running gear is all right," said he; "but I seem to have lost my voice."
Suddenly his ear was assailed by a succession of eager barks, as of another dog in pursuit of him. It then began to dawn upon him that he was a particularly rapid dog: instead of having lost his voice, his voice had lost him, and was just now arriving. Full of his discovery, he sought his master, and struck for better food and more comfortable housing.
"Why, you miserable example of perverted powers!" said his master; "I never intended you for the chase, but for the road. You are to be a draught-dog—to pull baby about in a cart. You will perceive that speed is an objection. Sir, youmust be toned down; you will be at once assigned to a house with modern conveniences, and will dine at a French restaurant. If that system do not reduce your own, I'm an 'Ebrew Jew!"
The journals next morning had racy and appetizing accounts of a canine suicide.
A gosling, who had not yet begun to blanch, was accosted by a chicken just out of the shell:
"Whither away so fast, fair maid?" inquired the chick.
"Wither away yourself," was the contemptuous reply; "you are already in the sere and yellow leaf; while I seem to have a green old age before me."
A famishing traveller who had run down a salamander, made a fire, and laid him alive upon the hot coals to cook. Wearied with the pursuit which had preceded his capture, the animal at once composed himself, and fell into a refreshing sleep. At the end of a half-hour, the man, stirred him with a stick, remarking:
"I say!—wake up and begin toasting, will you? How long do you mean to keep dinner waiting, eh?"
"Oh, I beg you will not wait for me," was the yawning reply. "If you are going to stand upon ceremony, everything will get cold. Besides, I have dined. I wish, by-the-way, you would put on some more fuel; I think we shall have snow."
"Yes," said the man, "the weather is like yourself—raw, and exasperatingly cool. Perhaps this will warm you." And he rolled a ponderous pinelog atop of that provoking reptile, who flattened out, and "handed in his checks."
The moral thus doth glibly run—A cause its opposite may brew;The sun-shade is unlike the sun,The plum unlike the plumber, too.A salamander underdoneHis impudence may overdo.
The moral thus doth glibly run—A cause its opposite may brew;The sun-shade is unlike the sun,The plum unlike the plumber, too.A salamander underdoneHis impudence may overdo.
The moral thus doth glibly run—
A cause its opposite may brew;
The sun-shade is unlike the sun,
The plum unlike the plumber, too.
A salamander underdone
His impudence may overdo.
A humming-bird invited a vulture to dine with her. He accepted, but took the precaution to have an emetic along with him; and immediately after dinner, which consisted mainly of dew, spices, honey, and similar slops, he swallowed his corrective, and tumbled the distasteful viands out. He then went away, and made a good wholesome meal with his friend the ghoul. He has been heard to remark, that the taste for humming-bird fare is "too artificial forhim." He says, a simple and natural diet, with agreeable companions, cheerful surroundings, and a struggling moon, is best for the health, and most agreeable to the normal palate.
People with vitiated tastes may derive much profit from this opinion.Crede experto.
A certain terrier, of a dogmatic turn, asked a kitten her opinion of rats, demanding a categorical answer. The opinion, as given, did not possess the merit of coinciding with his own; whereupon he fell upon the heretic and bit her—bit her until his teeth were much worn and her body much elongated—bither good! Having thus vindicated the correctness of his own view, he felt so amiable a satisfaction that he announced his willingness to adopt the opinion of which he had demonstrated the harmlessness. So he begged his enfeebled antagonist to re-state it, which she incautiously did. No sooner, however, had the superior debater heard it for the second time than he resumed his intolerance, and made an end of that unhappy cat.
"Heresy," said he, wiping his mouth, "may be endured in the vigorous and lusty; but in a person lying at the very point of death such hardihood is intolerable."
It is always intolerable.
A tortoise and an armadillo quarrelled, and agreed to fight it out. Repairing to a secluded valley, they put themselves into hostile array.
"Now come on!" shouted the tortoise, shrinking into the inmost recesses of his shell.
"All right," shrieked the armadillo, coiling up tightly in his coat of mail; "I am ready for you!"
And thus these heroes waged the awful fray from morn till dewy eve, at less than a yard's distance. There has never been anything like it; their endurance was something marvellous! During the night each combatant sneaked silently away; and the historian of the period obscurely alludes to the battle as "the naval engagement of the future."
Hedgehog and Hare
Two hedgehogs having conceived a dislike to a hare, conspired for his extinction. It was agreed between them that the lighter and more agile of thetwo should beat him up, surround him, run him into a ditch, and drive him upon the thorns of the more gouty and unwieldy conspirator. It was not a very hopeful scheme, but it was the best they could devise. There was a chance of success if the hare should prove willing, and, gambler-like, they decided to take that chance, instead of trusting to the remote certainty of their victim's death from natural cause. The doomed animal performed his part as well as could be reasonably expected of him: every time the enemy's flying detachment pressed him hard, he fled playfully toward the main body, and lightly vaulted over, about eight feet above the spines. Andthis prickly blockhead had not the practical sagacity to get upon a wall seven feet and six inches high!
This fable is designed to show that the most desperate chances are comparatively safe.
A young eel inhabiting the mouth of a river in India, determined to travel. Being a fresh-water eel, he was somewhat restricted in his choice of a route, but he set out with a cheerful heart and very little luggage. Before he had proceeded very far up-stream he found the current too strong to be overcome without a ruinous consumption of coals. He decided to anchor his tail where it then was, andgrowup. For the first hundred miles it was tolerably tedious work, but when he had learned to tame his impatience, he found this method of progress rather pleasant than otherwise. But when he began to be caught at widely separate points by the fishermen of eight or ten different nations, he did not think it so fine.
This fable teaches that when you extend your residence you multiply your experiences. A local eel can know but little of angling.
Some of the lower animals held a convention to settle for ever the unspeakably important question, What is Life?
"Life," squeaked the poet, blinking and folding his filmy wings, "is—." His kind having been already very numerously heard from upon the subject, he was choked off.
"Life," said the scientist, in a voice smothered by the earth he was throwing up into small hills, "isthe harmonious action of heterogeneous but related faculties, operating in accordance with certain natural laws."
"Ah!" chattered the lover, "but that thawt of thing is vewy gweat blith in the thothiety of one'th thweetheart." And curling his tail about a branch, he swung himself heavenward and had a spasm.
"It isvita!" grunted the sententious scholar, pausing in his mastication of a Chaldaic root.
"It is a thistle," brayed the warrior: "very nice thing to take!"
"Life, my friends," croaked the philosopher from his hollow tree, dropping the lids over his cattish eyes, "is a disease. We are all symptoms."
"Pooh!" ejaculated the physician, uncoiling and springing his rattle. "How then does it happen that whenweremove the symptoms, the disease is gone?"
"I would give something to know that," replied the philosopher, musingly; "but I suspect that in most cases the inflammation remains, and is intensified."
Draw your own moral inference, "in your own jugs."
A heedless boy having flung a pebble in the direction of a basking lizard, that reptile's tail disengaged itself, and flew some distance away. One of the properties of a lizard's camp-follower is to leave the main body at the slightest intimation of danger.
"There goes that vexatious narrative again," exclaimed the lizard, pettishly; "I never had such a tail in my life! Its restless tendency to divorce upon insufficient grounds is enough to harrow thereptilian soul! Now," he continued, backing up to the fugitive part, "perhaps you will be good enough to resume your connection with the parent establishment."
No sooner was the splice effected, than an astronomer passing that way casually remarked to a friend that he had just sighted a comet. Supposing itself menaced, the timorous member again sprang away, coming down plump before the horny nose of a sparrow. Here its career terminated.
We sometimes escape from an imaginary danger, only to find some real persecutor has a little bill against us.
A jackal who had pursued a deer all day with unflagging industry, was about to seize him, when an earthquake, which was doing a little civil engineering in that part of the country, opened a broad chasm between him and his prey.
"Now, here," said he, "is a distinct interference with the laws of nature. But if we are to tolerate miracles, there is an end of all progress."
So speaking, he endeavoured to cross the abyss at two jumps. His fate would serve the purpose of an impressive warning if it might be clearly ascertained; but the earth having immediately pinched together again, the research of the moral investigator is baffled.
"Ah!" sighed a three-legged stool, "if I had only been a quadruped, I should have been happy as the day is long—which, on the twenty-first of June, would be considerable felicity for a stool."
"Ha! look at me!" said a toadstool; "considermy superior privation, and be content with your comparatively happy lot."
"I don't discern," replied the first, "how the contemplation of unipedal misery tends to alleviate tripedal wretchedness."
"You don't, eh!" sneered the toadstool. "You mean, do you, to fly in the face of all the moral and social philosophers?"
"Not unless some benefactor of his race shall impel me."
"H'm! I think Zambri the Parsee is the man for that kindly office, my dear."
This final fable teaches that he is.
FOOL.—I have a question for you.
PHILOSOPHER.—I have a number of them for myself. Do you happen to have heard that a fool can ask more questions in a breath than a philosopher can answer in a life?
F.—I happen to have heard that in such a case the one is as great a fool as the other.
PH.—Then there is no distinction between folly and philosophy?
F.—Don't lay the flattering unction to your soul. The province of folly is to ask unanswerable questions. It is the function of philosophy to answer them.
PH.—Admirable fool!
F.—Am I? Pray tell me the meaning of "a fool."
PH.—Commonly he has none.
F.—I mean—
PH.—Then in this case he has one.
F.—I lick thy boots! But what does Solomon indicate by the word fool? That is what I mean.
PH.—Let us then congratulate Solomon upon the agreement between the views of you two. However, I twig your intent: he means a wicked sinner; andof all forms of folly there is none so great as wicked sinning. For goodness is, in the end, more conducive to personal happiness—which is the sole aim of man.
F.—Hath virtue no better excuse than this?
PH.—Possibly; philosophy is not omniscience.
F.—Instructed I sit at thy feet!
PH.—Unwilling to instruct, I stand on my head.
FOOL.—You say personal happiness is the sole aim of man.
PHILOSOPHER.—Then it is.
F.—But this is much disputed.
PH.—There is much personal happiness in disputation.
F.—Socrates—
PH.—Hold! I detest foreigners.
F.—Wisdom, they say, is of no country.
PH.—Of none that I have seen.
FOOL.—Let us return to our subject—the sole aim of mankind. Crack me these nuts. (1) The man, never weary of well-doing, who endures a life of privation for the good of his fellow-creatures?
PHILOSOPHER.—Does he feel remorse in so doing? or does the rascal rather like it?
F.—(2) He, then, who, famishing himself, parts his loaf with a beggar?
PH.—There are people who prefer benevolence to bread.
F.—Ah!De gustibus—
PH.—Shut up!
F.—Well, (3) how of him who goes joyfully to martyrdom?
PH.—He goes joyfully.
F.—And yet—
PH.—Did you ever converse with a good man going to the stake?
F.—I never saw a good man going to the stake.
PH.—Unhappy pupil! you were born some centuries too early.
FOOL.—You say you detest foreigners. Why?
PHILOSOPHER.—Because I am human.
F.—But so are they.
PH.—Excellent fool! I thank thee for the better reason.
PHILOSOPHER.—I have been thinking of thepocopo.
FOOL.—Is it open to the public?
PH.—The pocopo is a small animal of North America, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. It subsists solely upon a single article of food.
F.—What is that?
PH.—Other pocopos. Unable to obtain this, their natural sustenance, a great number of pocopos die annually of starvation. Their death leaves fewer mouths to feed, and by consequence their race is rapidly multiplying.
F.—From whom had you this?
PH.—A professor of political economy.
F.—I bend in reverence! What made you think of the pocopo?
PH.—Speaking of man.
F.—If you did not wish to think of the pocopo, and speaking of man would make you think of it, you would not speak of man, would you?
PH.—Certainly not.
F.—Why not?
PH.—I do not know.
F.—Excellent philosopher!
FOOL.—I have attentively considered your teachings. They may be full of wisdom; they are certainly out of taste.
PHILOSOPHER.—Whose taste?
F.—Why, that of people of culture.
PH.—Do any of these people chance to have a taste for intoxication, tobacco, hard hats, false hair, the nude ballet, and over-feeding?
F.—Possibly; but in intellectual matters you must confess their taste is correct.
PH.—Why must I?
F.—They say so themselves.
PHILOSOPHER.—I have been thinking why a dolt is called a donkey.
FOOL.—I had thought philosophy concerned itself with a less personal class of questions; but why is it?
PH.—The essential quality of a dolt is stupidity.
F.—Mine ears are drunken!
PH.—The essential quality of an ass is asininity.
F.—Divine philosophy!
PH.—As commonly employed, "stupidity" and "asininity" are convertible terms.
F.—That I, unworthy, should have lived to see this day!
FOOL.—IfIwere a doctor—
DOCTOR.—I should endeavour to be a fool.
F.—You would fail; folly is not easily achieved.
D.—True; man is overworked.
F.—Let him take a pill.
D.—If he like. I would not.
F.—You are too frank: take a fool's advice.
D.—Thank thee for the nastier prescription.
FOOL.—I have a friend who—
DOCTOR.—Stands in great need of my assistance. Absence of excitement, gentle restraint, a hard bed, simple diet—that will straighten him out.
F.—I'll give thee sixpence to let me touch the hem of thy garment!
D.—What of your friend?
F.—He is a gentleman.
D.—Then he is dead!
F.—Just so: he is "straightened out"—he took your prescription.
D.—All but the "simple diet."
F.—He is himself the diet.
D.—How simple!
FOOL.—Believe you a man retains his intellect after decapitation?
DOCTOR.—It is possible that he acquires it?
F.—Much good it does him.
D.—Why not—as compensation? He is at some disadvantage in other respects.
F.—For example?
D.—He is in a false position.
FOOL.—What is the most satisfactory disease?
DOCTOR.—Paralysis of the thoracic duct.
F.—I am not familiar with it.
D.—It does not encourage familiarity. Paralysis of the thoracic duct enables the patient to accept as many invitations to dinner as he can secure, without danger of spoiling his appetite.
F.—But how long does his appetite last?
D.—That depends. Always a trifle longer than he does.
F.—The portion that survives him—?
D.—Goes to swell the Mighty Gastric Passion which lurks darkly Outside, yawning to swallow up material creation!
F.—Pitch it a biscuit.
FOOL.—You attend a patient. He gets well. Good! How do you tell whether his recovery is because of your treatment or in spite of it?
DOCTOR.—I never do tell.
F.—I mean how do you know?
D.—I take the opinion of a person interested in the question: I ask a fool.
F.—How does the patient know?
D.—The fool asks me.
F.—Amiable instructor! How shall I reward thee?
D.—Eat a cucumber cut up in shilling claret.
DOCTOR.—The relation between a patient and his disease is the same as that which obtains between the two wooden weather-prophets of a Dutch clock. When the disease goes off, the patient goes on; when the disease goes on, the patient goes off.
FOOL.—A pauper conceit. Their relations, then, are not of the most cordial character.
D.—One's relations—except the poorer sort—seldom are.
F.—My tympanum is smitten with pleasant peltings of wisdom! I 'll lay you ten to one you cannot tell me the present condition of your last patient.
D.—Done!
F.—You have won the wager.
FOOL.—I once read the report of an actual conversation upon a scientific subject between a fool and a physician.
DOCTOR.—Indeed! That sort of conversation commonly takes place between fools only.
F.—The reporter had chosen to confound orthography: he spelt fool "phool," and physician "fysician." What the fool said was, therefore, preceded by "PH;" the remarks of the physician were indicated by the letter "F."
D.—This must have been very confusing.
F.—It was. But no one discovered that any liberties had been taken with orthography.
D.—You tumour!
FOOL.—Suppose you had amongst your menials an ailing oyster?
DOCTOR.—Oysters do not ail.
F.—I have heard that the pearl is the result of a disease.
D.—Whether a functional derangement producing a valuable gem can be properly termed, or treated as, a disease, is open to honest doubt.
F.—Then in the case supposed you would not favour excision of the abnormal part?
D.—Yes; I would remove the oyster.
F.—But if the pearl were growing very rapidly this operation would not be immediately advisable.
D.—That would depend upon the symptomatic diagnosis.
F.—Beast! Give me air!
DOCTOR.—I have been thinking—
FOOL.—(Liar!)
D.—That you "come out" rather well for a fool.
Can it be that I have been entertaining an angel unawares?
F.—Dismiss the apprehension: I am as great a fool as yourself. But there is a way by which in future you may resolve a similar doubt.
D.—Explain.
F.—Speak to your guest of symptomatic diagnosis. If he is an angel, he will not resent it.
SOLDIER (reading from "Napier").—"Who would not rather be buried by an army upon the field of battle than by a sexton in a church-yard!"
FOOL.—I give it up.
S.—I am not aware that any one has asked you for an opinion.
F.—I am not aware that I have given one: there is a happiness yet in store for you.
S.—I will revel in anticipation.
F.—You must revel somehow; without revelry there would be no soldiering.
S.—Idiot.
F.—I beg your pardon: I had thought your profession had at least taught you to call people by their proper titles. In the service of mankind I hold the rank of Fool.
S.—What, ho! without there! Let the trumpets sound!
F.—I beg you will not.
S.—True; you beg: I will not.
F.—But why rob when stealing is more honourable?
S.—Consider the competition.
FOOL.—Sir Cut-throat, how many orphans have you made to-day?
SOLDIER.—The devil an orphan! Have you a family?
F.—Put up your iron; I am the last of my race.
S.—How? No more fools?
F.—Not one, so help me! They have all gone to the wars.
S.—And why, pray, haveyounot enlisted?
F.—I should be no fool if I knew.
FOOL.—You are somewhat indebted to me.
SOLDIER.—I do not acknowledge your claim. Let us submit the matter to arbitration.
F.—The only arbiter whose decision you respect is on your own side.
S.—You allude to my sword, the most impartial of weapons: it cuts both ways.
F.—And each way is peculiarly objectionable to your opponent.
S.—But for what am I indebted to you?
F.—For existence: the prevalence of me has made you possible.
S.—The benefit is not conspicuous; were it not for your quarrels, I should enjoy a quantity of elegant leisure.
F.—As a clodhopper.
S.—I should at least hop my clods in a humble and Christian spirit; and if some other fellow did did not so hop his—! I say no more.
F.—You have said enough; there would be war.
SOLDIER.—Why wear a cap and bells?
FOOL.—I hasten to crave pardon, and if spared will at once exchange them.
S.—For what?
F.—A helmet and feather.
S.—G "hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs."
F.—'T is only wisdom should be bound in calf.
S.—Why?
F.—Because wisdom is the veal of which folly is the matured beef.
S.—Then folly should be garbed in cow-skin?
F.—Aye, that it might the more speedily appear for what it is—the naked truth.
S.—How should it?
F.—You would soon strip off its hide to make harness and trappings withal. No one thinks how much conquerors owe to cows.
FOOL.—Tell me, hero, what is strategy?
SOLDIER.—The art of laying two knives against one throat.
F.—And what are tactics?
S.—The art of driving them home.
F.—Supermundane lexicographer!
S.—I'll bust thy crust! (Attempts to draw his sword, gets it between his legs, and falls along.)
F. (from a distance)—Shall I summon an army, or a sexton? And will you have it of bronze, or marble?
FOOL.—When you have gained a great victory, how much of the glory goes to the horse whose back you bestrode?
SOLDIER.—Nonsense! A horse cannot appreciate glory; he prefers corn.
F.—And this you call non-appreciation! But listen. (Reads) "During the Crusades, a part of the armament of a Turkish ship was two hundred serpents." In the pursuit of glory you are at least not above employing humble auxiliaries. These be curious allies.
S.—What stuff a fool may talk! No true soldierwould pit a serpent against a brave enemy. These worms weresailors.
F.—A nice distinction, truly! Did you ever, my most acute professor of vivisection, employ your trenchant blade in the splitting of hairs?
S.—I have split masses of them.
FOOL.—Speaking of the Crusades: at the siege of Acre, when a part of the wall had been thrown down by the Christians, the Pisans rushed into the breach, but the greater part of their army being at dinner, they were bloodily repulsed.
SOLDIER.—You appear to have a minute acquaintance with military history.
F.—Yes—being a fool. But was it not a sin and a shame that those feeders should not stir from their porridge to succour their suffering comrades?
S.—Pray why should a man neglect his business to oblige a friend?
F.—But they might have taken and sacked the city.
S.—The selfish gluttons!
SOLDIER.—Your presumption grows intolerable; I'll hold no further parley with thee.
FOOL.—"Herculean gentleman, I dread thy drubs; pity the lifted whites of both my eyes!"
S.—Then speak no more of the things you do but imperfectly understand.
F.—Such censorship would doom all tongues to silence. But show me wherein my knowledge is deficient.
S.—What is anabattis?
F.—Rubbish placed in front of a fort, to keep the rubbish outside from getting at the rubbish inside.
S.—Egad! I'll part thy hair!
I hope all my little readers have heard the story of Mr. Androcles and the lion; so I will relate it as nearly as I can remember it, with the caution that Androcles must not be confounded with the lion. If I had a picture representing Androcles with a silk hat, and the lion with a knot in his tail, the two might readily be distinguished; but the artist says he won't make any such picture, and we must try to get on without.
One day Androcles was gathering truffles in a forest, when he found a lion's den; and, walking into it, he lay down and slept. It was a custom, in his time, to sleep in lions' dens when practicable. The lion was absent, inspecting a zoological garden, and did not return until late; but he did return. He was surprised to find a stranger in his menagerie without a ticket; but, supposing him to be some contributor to a comic paper, did not eat him: he was very well satisfied not to be eaten by him. Presently Androcles awoke, wishing he had some seltzer water, or something. (Seltzer water is good after a night's debauch, and something—it is difficult to say what—is good to begin the new debauch with). Seeing the lion eyeing him, he began hastily to pencil his last will and testament upon the rockyfloor of the den. What was his surprise to see the lion advance amicably and extend his right forefoot! Androcles, however, was equal to the occasion: he met the friendly overture with a cordial grasp of the hand, whereat the lion howled—for he had a carpet-tack in his foot. Perceiving that he had made a little mistake, Androcles made such reparation as was in his power by pulling out the tack and putting it in his own foot.
After this the beast could not do too much for him. He went out every morning—carefully locking the door behind him—and returned every evening, bringing in a nice fat baby from an adjacent village, and laying it gratefully at his benefactor's feet. For the first few days something seemed to have gone wrong with the benefactor's appetite, but presently he took very kindly to the new diet; and, as he could not get away, he lodged there, rent-free, all the days of his life—which terminated very abruptly one evening when the lion had not met with his usual success in hunting.
All this has very little to do with my story: I throw it in as a classical allusion, to meet the demands of a literary fashion which has its origin in the generous eagerness of writers to give the public more than it pays for. But the story of Androcles was a favourite with the bear whose adventures I am about to relate.
One day this crafty brute carefully inserted a thorn between two of his toes, and limped awkwardly to the farm-house of Dame Pinworthy, a widow, who with two beautiful whelps infested the forest where he resided. He knocked at the open door, sent in his card, and was duly admitted to the presence of the lady, who inquired his purpose. By way of "defining his position" he held up his foot,and snuffled very dolorously. The lady adjusted her spectacles, took the paw in her lap (she, too, had heard the tale of Androcles), and, after a close scrutiny,discovered the thorn, which, as delicately as possible, she extracted, the patient making wry faces and howling dismally the while.
Widow and Bear
When it was all over, and she had assured him there was no charge, his gratitude was a passion to observe! He desired to embrace her at once; but this, although a widow of seven years' standing, she would by no means permit; she said she was not personally averse to hugging, "but what would her dear departed—boo-hoo!—say of it?" This was very absurd, for Mr. Boo-hoo had seven feet of solid earth above him, and it couldn't make much difference what he said, even supposing he had enough tongue left to say anything, which he had not. However, the polite beast respected her scruples; so the only way in which he could testify his gratitude was by remaining to dinner. They had the housedog for dinner that day, though, from some false notion of hospitable etiquette, the woman and children did not take any.
On the next day, punctually at the same hour, the bear came again with another thorn, and stayed to dinner as before. It was not much of a dinner this time—only the cat, and a roll of stair-carpet, with one or two pieces of sheet music; but true gratitude does not despise even the humblest means of expression. The succeeding day he came as before; but after being relieved of his torment, he found nothing prepared for him. But when he took to thoughtfully licking one of the little girl's hands, "that answered not with a caress," the mother thought better of it, and drove in a small heifer.
He now came every day; he was so old a friend that the formality of extracting the thorn was no longer observed; it would have contributed nothing to the good understanding that existed betweenhim and the widow. He thought that three or four instances of Good Samaritanism afforded ample matter for perpetual gratitude. His constant visits were bad for the live stock of the farm; for some kind of beast had to be in readiness each day to furnish forth the usual feast, and this prevented multiplication. Most of the textile fabrics, too, had disappeared; for the appetite of this animal was at the same time cosmopolitan and exacting: it would accept almost anything in the way ofentremets, but something it would have. A hearthrug, a hall-mat, a cushion, mattress, blanket, shawl, or other article of wearing apparel—anything, in short, that was easy of ingestion was graciously approved. The widow tried him once with a box of coals as dessert to some barn-yard fowls; but this he seemed to regard as a doubtful comestible, seductive to the palate, but obstinate in the stomach. A look at one of the children always brought him something else, no matter what he was then engaged on.
It was suggested to Mrs. Pinworthy that she should poison the bear; but, after trying about a hundredweight of strychnia, arsenic, and Prussic acid, without any effect other than what might be expected from mild tonics, she thought it would not be right to go into toxicology. So the poor Widow Pinworthy went on, patiently enduring the consumption of her cattle, sheep, and hogs, the evaporation of her poultry, and the taking off of her bed linen, until there were left only the clothing of herself and children, some curtains, a sickly lamb, and a pet pigeon. When the bear came for these she ventured to expostulate. In this she was perfectly successful: the animal permitted her to expostulate as long as she liked. Then he ate the lamb and pigeon, took in a dish-cloth or two, andwent away just as contentedly as if she had not uttered a word.
Nothing edible now stood between her little daughters and the grave. Her mental agony was painful to her mind; she could scarcely have suffered more without an increase of unhappiness. She was roused to desperation; and next day, when she saw the bear leaping across the fields toward the house, she staggered from her seat and shut the door. It was singular what a difference it made; she always remembered it after that, and wished she had thought of it before.