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!" assented 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.
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