If they could only have had the privilege of reading this fable, it
would have taught them more than either.
XVII.
While a man was trying with all his might to cross a fence, a bull ran
to his assistance, and taking him upon his horns, tossed him over.
Seeing the man walking away without making any remark, the bull said:
"You are quite welcome, I am sure. I did no more than my duty."
"I take a different view of it, very naturally," replied the man, "and
you may keep your polite acknowledgments of my gratitude until you
receive it. I did not require your services."
"You don't mean to say," answered the bull, "that you did not wish to
cross that fence!"
"I mean to say," was the rejoinder, "that I wished to cross it by my
method, solely to avoid crossing it by yours."
_Fabula docet_ that while the end is everything, the means is
something.
XVIII.
An hippopotamus meeting an open alligator, said to him:
"My forked friend, you may as well collapse. You are not sufficiently
comprehensive to embrace me. I am myself no tyro at smiling, when in
the humour."
"I really had no expectation of taking you in," replied the other. "I
have a habit of extending my hospitality impartially to all, and about
seven feet wide.
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