"
"You remind me," said the hippopotamus, "of a certain zebra who was
not vicious at all; he merely kicked the breath out of everything that
passed behind him, but did not induce things to pass behind him."
"It is quite immaterial what I remind you of," was the reply.
The lesson conveyed by this fable is a very beautiful one.
XIX.
A man was plucking a living goose, when his victim addressed him thus:
"Suppose _you_ were a goose; do you think you would relish this sort
of thing?"
"Well, suppose I were," answered the man; "do you think _you_ would
like to pluck me?"
"Indeed I would!" was the emphatic, natural, but injudicious reply.
"Just so," concluded her tormentor; "that's the way _I_ feel about the
matter."
XX.
A traveller perishing of thirst in a desert, debated with his camel
whether they should continue their journey, or turn back to an oasis
they had passed some days before. The traveller favoured the latter
plan.
"I am decidedly opposed to any such waste of time," said the animal;
"I don't care for oases myself."
"I should not care for them either," retorted the man, with some
temper, "if, like you, I carried a number of assorted water-tanks
inside. But as you will not submit to go back, and I shall not consent
to go forward, we can only remain where we are.
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