Part 15 (1/2)

A mole, in pursuing certain geological researches, came upon the buried carcase of a mule, and was about to tunnel him.

”Slow down, my good friend,” said the deceased. ”Push your mining operations in a less sacrilegious direction. Respect the dead, as you hope for death!”

”You have that about you,” said the gnome, ”that must make your grave respected in a certain sense, for at least such a period as your immortal part may require for perfect exhalation. The immunity I accord is not conceded to your sanct.i.ty, but extorted by your scent.

The sepulchres of moles only are sacred.”

To moles, the body of a lifeless mule A dead mule's carcase is, and nothing more.

Lx.x.xVIII.

”I think I'll set my sting into you, my obstructive friend,” said a bee to an iron pump against which she had flown; ”you are always more or less in the way.”

”If you do,” retorted the other, ”I'll pump on you, if I can get any one to work my handle.”

Exasperated by this impotent conservative threat, she pushed her little dart against him with all her vigour. When she tried to sheathe it again she couldn't, but she still made herself useful about the hive by hooking on to small articles and dragging them about. But no other bee would sleep with her after this; and so, by her ill-judged resentment, she was self-condemmed to a solitary cell.

The young reader may profitably beware.

Lx.x.xIX.

A Chinese dog, who had been much abroad with his master, was asked, upon his return, to state the most ludicrous fact he had observed.

”There is a country,” said he, ”the people of which are eternally speaking about 'Persian honesty,' 'Persian courage,' 'Persian loyalty,' 'Persian love of fair play,' &c., as if the Persians enjoyed a clear monopoly of these universal virtues. What is more, they speak thus in blind good faith--with a dense gravity of conviction that is simply amazing.”

”But,” urged the auditors, ”we requested something ludicrous, not amazing.”

”Exactly; the ludicrous part is the name of their country, which is--”

”What?”

”Persia.”

XC.

There was a calf, who, suspecting the purity of the milk supplied him by his dam, resolved to transfer his patronage to the barn-yard pump.

”Better,” said he, ”a pure article of water, than a diet that is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.”