But before I cross your threshold, sir, if I may make so free,
Pray let me introduce to you my friend, 'the wicked flea.'"
"How do you?" says the spider, as his welcome he extends;
"'How doth the busy little bee,' and all our other friends?"
"Quite well, I think, and quite unchanged," the flea said; "though I learn,
In certain quarters well informed, 'tis feared 'the worm will turn.'"
"Humph!" said the fly; "I do not understand this talk--not I!"
"It is 'classical allusion,'" said the spider to the fly.
CXVI.
A polar bear navigating the mid-sea upon the mortal part of a late
lamented walrus, soliloquized, in substance, as follows:
"Such liberty of action as I am afflicted with is enough to embarrass
any bear that ever bore. I can remain passive, and starve; or I can
devour my ship, and drown. I am really unable to decide."
So he sat down to think it over. He considered the question in all its
aspects, until he grew quite thin; turned it over and over in his mind
until he was too weak to sit up; meditated upon it with a constantly
decreasing pulse, a rapidly failing respiration. But he could not make
up his mind, and finally expired without having come to a decision.
It appears to me he might almost as well have chosen starvation, at a
venture.
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