"I hate snakes who bestow their caresses with interested partiality or fastidious discrimination," boasted a boa constrictor. "_My_ affection is unbounded; it embraces all animated nature. I am the universal shepherd; I gather all manner of living things into my folds. Entertainment here for man and beast!"

"I should be glad of one of your caresses," said a porcupine, meekly; "it has been some time since I got a loving embrace."

So saying, he nestled snugly and confidingly against the large-hearted serpent--who fled.

A comprehensive philanthropy may be devoid of prejudices, but it has its preferences all the same.

XLVIII.

During a distressing famine in China a starving man met a fat pig, who, seeing no chance of escape, walked confidently up to the superior animal, and said:

"Awful famine! isn't it?"

"Quite dreadful!" replied the man, eyeing him with an evident purpose: "almost impossible to obtain meat."

"Plenty of meat, such as it is, but no corn. Do you know, I have been compelled to eat so many of your people, I don't believe there is an ounce of pork in my composition."

"And I so many that I have lost all taste for pork."

"Terrible thing this cannibalism!"

"Depends upon which character you try it in; it is terrible to be eaten."

"You are very brutal!"

"You are very fat."

"You look as if you would take my life."

"You look as if you would sustain mine."

"Let us 'pull sticks,'" said the now desperate animal, "to see which of us shall die."

"Good!" a.s.sented the man: "I'll pull this one."

So saying, he drew a hedge-stake from the ground, and stained it with the brain of that unhappy porker.

MORAL.--An empty stomach has no ears.

XLIX.

A snake, a mile long, having drawn himself over a roc's egg, complained that in its present form he could get no benefit from it, and modestly desired the roc to aid him in some way.

"Certainly," a.s.sented the bird, "I think we can arrange it."

Saying which, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the smaller Persian provinces, and poising herself a few leagues above the suffering reptile, let it drop upon him to smash the egg.

This fable exhibits the folly of asking for aid without specifying the kind and amount of aid you require.

L.

An ox meeting a man on the highway, asked him for a pinch of snuff, whereupon the man fled back along the road in extreme terror.

"_Don't_ be alarmed," said a horse whom he met; "the ox won't bite you."

The man gave one stare and dashed across the meadows.

"Well," said a sheep, "I wouldn't be afraid of a horse; _he_ won't kick."

The man shot like a comet into the forest.

"Look where you're going there, or I'll thrash the life out of you!"

screamed a bird into whose nest he had blundered.

Frantic with fear, the man leapt into the sea.

"By Jove! how you frightened me," said a small shark.

The man was dejected, and felt a sense of injury. He seated himself moodily on the bottom, braced up his chin with his knees, and thought for an hour. Then he beckoned to the fish who had made the last remark.

"See here, I say," said he, "I wish you would just tell me what in thunder this all means."

"Ever read any fables?" asked the shark.

"No--yes--well, the catechism, the marriage service, and--"

"Oh, bother!" said the fish, playfully, smiling clean back to the pectoral fins; "get out of this and bolt your aesop!"

The man did get out and bolted.

[This fable teaches that its worthy author was drunk as a loon.--TRANSLATOR.]

LI.