Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

XXXI.

 An old fox and her two cubs were pursued by dogs, when one of the cubs got a thorn in his foot, and could go no farther. Setting the other to watch for the pursuers, the mother proceeded, with much tender solicitude, to extract the thorn. Just as she had done so, the sentinel gave the alarm.

'How near are they?' asked the mother.

'Close by, in the next field,' was the answer.

'The deuce they are!' was the hasty rejoinder. 'However, I presume they will be content with a single fox.'

And shoving the thorn earnestly back into the wounded foot, this excellent parent took to her heels.

This fable proves that humanity does not happen to enjoy a monopoly of paternal affection.

XXXII.

A man crossing the great river of Egypt, heard a voice, which seemed to come from beneath his boat, requesting him to stop. Thinking it must proceed from some river-deity, he laid down his paddle and said:

'Whoever you are that ask me to stop, I beg you will let me go on. I have been asked by a friend to dine with him, and I am late.'

'Should your friend pass this way,' said the voice, 'I will show him the cause of your detention. Meantime you must come to dinner with me. '

'Willingly,' replied the man, devoutly, very well pleased with so extraordinary an honour; 'pray show me the way.'

'In here,' said the crocodile, elevating his distending jaws above the water and beckoning with his tongue-'this way, please.'

This fable shows that being asked to dinner is not always the same thing as being asked to dine.

XXXIII.

An old monkey, designing to teach his sons the advantage of unity, brought them a number of sticks, and desired them to see how easily they might be broken, one at a time. So each young monkey took a stick and broke it.

'Now,' said the father, 'I will teach you a lesson.'

And he began to gather the sticks into a bundle. But the young monkeys, thinking he was about to beat them, set upon him, all together, and disabled him.

'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. With his last breath he asked them why, being so formidable, they had not killed the kite. They replied that they had never seen any kite. 

XXXVI.

A defeated warrior snatched up his aged father, and, slinging him across his shoulders, plunged into the wilderness, followed by the weary remnant of his beaten army. The old gentleman liked it.

'See!' said he, triumphantly, to the flying legion; 'did you ever hear of so dutiful and accommodating a son? And he's as easy under the saddle as an old family horse!'

'I rather think,' replied the broken and disordered battalion, with a grin, 'that Mr. Æneas once did something of this kind. But his father had thoughtfully taken an armful of lares and penates; and the accommodating nature of his son was, therefore, more conspicuous. If I might venture to suggest that you take up my shield and scimitar-'

'Thank you,' said the aged party, 'I could not think of disarming the military: but if you would just hand me up one of the heaviest of those dead branches, I think the merits of my son would be rendered sufficiently apparent.'

The routed column passed him up the one shown in the immediate foreground of our sketch, and it was quite enough for both steed and rider.

Fabula ostendit that History repeats itself, with variations.

XXXVII.

A pig who had engaged a cray-fish to pilot him along the beach in search of mussels, was surprised to see his guide start off backwards.

'Your excessive politeness quite overcomes me,' said the porker, 'but don't you think it rather ill bestowed upon a pig? Pray don't hesitate to turn your back upon me.'

'Sir,' replied the cray-fish, 'permit me to continue as I am. We now stand to each other in the proper relation of employé to employer. The former is excessively obsequious, and the