"There!" said the aged sufferer, "behold the advantage of unity! If
you had assailed me one at a time, I would have killed every mother's
son of you!"
Moral lessons are like the merchant's goods: they are conveyed in
various ways.
XXXIV.
A wild horse meeting a domestic one, taunted him with his condition of
servitude. The tamed animal claimed that he was as free as the wind.
"If that is so," said the other, "pray tell me the office of that bit
in your mouth."
"That," was the answer, "is iron, one of the best tonics in the
_materia medica_."
"But what," said the other, "is the meaning of the rein attached to
it?"
"Keeps it from falling out of my mouth when I am too indolent to hold
it," was the reply.
"How about the saddle?"
"Fool!" was the angry retort; "its purpose is to spare me fatigue:
when I am tired, I get on and ride."
XXXV.
Some doves went to a hawk, and asked him to protect them from a kite.
"That I will," was the cheerful reply; "and when I am admitted into
the dovecote, I shall kill more of you in a day than the kite did in a
century. But of course you know this; you expect to be treated in the
regular way."
So he entered the dovecote, and began preparations for a general
slaughter. But the doves all set upon him and made exceedingly short
work of him.
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