Fables for the Frivolous | Page 7

angle,
And sighed, "He
was of massive size.
I should have used discretion.
Too late!
Around the toothsome prize
A bargain-sale's in session."
The worm's remarks upon his plight
Have never been recorded,
But
any one may know how slight
Diversion it afforded;
For worms and
human beings are
Unanimous that, when pecked,
To be the prey of
men they far
Prefer to being hen-pecked.
THE MORAL: When your dinner comes
Don't leave it for your
neighbors,
Because you hear the sound of drums
And see the gleam
of sabres;

Or, like the cock, you'll find too late
That ornaments
external
Do not for certain indicate
A bona fide kernel.
THE ABBREVIATED FOX
AND

HIS SCEPTICAL COMRADES
A certain fox had a Grecian nose
And a beautiful tail. His friends

Were wont to say in a jesting way
A divinity shaped his ends.
The
fact is sad, but his foxship had
A fault we should all eschew:
He
was so deceived that he quite believed
What he heard from friends
was true.
One day he found in a sheltered spot
A trap with stalwart springs

That was cunningly planned to supply the demand
For some of those
tippet things.
The fox drew nigh, and resolved to try
The way that
the trap was set:
(When the trap was through with this interview

There was one less tippet to get!)
The fox returned to his doting friends
And said, with an awkward
smile,
"My tail I know was comme il faut,
And served me well for a
while."
When his comrades laughed at his shortage aft
He added,
with scornful bow,
"Pray check your mirth, for I hear from Worth

They're wearing them shorter now."
But one of his friends, a bookish chap,
Replied, with a thoughtful
frown,
"You know to-day the publishers say
That the short tale
won't go down;
And, upon my soul, I think on the whole,
That the
publishers' words are true.
I should hate, good sir, to part my fur
In
the middle, as done by you."
And another added these truthful words
In the midst of the eager hush,

"We can part our hair 'most anywhere
So long as we keep the
brush."
THE MORAL is this: It is never amiss
To treasure the things you've
penned:
Preserve your tales, for, when all else fails,
They'll be
useful things--in the end.
THE HOSPITABLE CALEDONIAN

AND
THE THANKLESS VIPER
A Caledonian piper
Who was walking on the wold
Nearly stepped
upon a viper
Rendered torpid by the cold;
By the sight of her
admonished,
He forbore to plant his boot,
But he showed he was
astonished
By the way he muttered "Hoot!"
Now this simple-minded piper
Such a kindly nature had
That he
lifted up the viper
And bestowed her in his plaid.
"Though the Scot
is stern, at least he
No unhappy creature spurns,
'Sleekit, cowrin,
tim'rous beastie,'"
Quoth the piper (quoting Burns).
This was unaffected kindness,
But there was, to state the fact,
Just a
slight soupcon of blindness
In his charitable act.
If you'd watched
the piper, shortly
You'd have seen him leap aloft,
As this snake, of
ways uncourtly,
Bit him suddenly and oft.
There was really no excuse for
This, the viper's cruel work,
And the
piper found a use for
Words he'd never learned at kirk;
But the
biting was so thorough
That although the doctors tried,
Not the best
in Edinburgh
Could assist him, and he died.
And THE MORAL is: The piper
Of the matter made a botch;
One
can hardly blame the viper
If she took a nip of Scotch,
For she only
did what he did,
And his nippie wasn't small,
Otherwise, you see,
he needed
Not have seen the snake at all.
THE IMPETUOUS BREEZE
AND

THE DIPLOMATIC SUN
A Boston man an ulster had,
An ulster with a cape that fluttered:
It

smacked his face, and made him mad,
And polyglot remarks he
uttered:
"I bought it at a bargain," said he,
"I'm tired of the thing
already."
The wind that chanced to blow that day
Was easterly, and rather
strong, too:
It loved to see the galling way
That clothes vex those
whom they belong to:
"Now watch me," cried this spell of weather,

"I'll rid him of it altogether."
It whirled the man across the street,
It banged him up against a railing,

It twined the ulster round his feet,
But all of this was unavailing:

For not without resource it found him:
He drew the ulster closer
round him.
"My word!" the man was heard to say,
"Although I like not such
abuse, it's
Not strange the wind is strong to-day,
It always is in
Massachusetts.
Such weather threatens much the health of

Inhabitants this Commonwealth of."
The sun, emerging from a rift
Between the clouds, observed the
victim,
And how the wind beset and biffed,
Belabored, buffeted,
and kicked him.
Said he, "This wind is doubtless new here:
'Tis
quite the freshest ever blew here."
And then he put forth all his strength,
His warmth with might and
main exerted,
Till upward in its tube at length
The mercury most
nimbly spurted.
Phenomenal the curious sight was,
So swift the rise
in Fahrenheit was.
The man supposed himself at first
The prey of some new mode of
smelting:
His pulses were about to burst,
His every limb seemed
slowly melting,
And, as the heat began to numb him,
He cast the
ulster wildly from him.
"Impulsive breeze, the use of force,"
Observed the sun, "a foolish