Fables | Page 6

by the ears. But at last the
innkeeper set a watch upon the devil and took him in the fact.
The innkeeper got a rope's end.
"Now I am going to thrash you," said the innkeeper.
"You have no right to be angry with me," said the devil. "I am only the
devil, and it is my nature to do wrong."
"Is that so?" asked the innkeeper.
"Fact, I assure you," said the devil.
"You really cannot help doing ill?" asked the innkeeper.
"Not in the smallest," said the devil; "it would be useless cruelty to
thrash a thing like me."
"It would indeed," said the innkeeper.
And he made a noose and hanged the devil.
"There!" said the innkeeper.

VI. - THE PENITENT
A MAN met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked.
"I am weeping for my sins," said the lad.
"You must have little to do," said the man.
The next day they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do
you weep now?" asked the man.
"I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad.
"I thought it would come to that," said the man.

VII. - THE YELLOW PAINT.
IN a certain city there lived a physician who sold yellow paint. This

was of so singular a virtue that whoso was bedaubed with it from head
to heel was set free from the dangers of life, and the bondage of sin,
and the fear of death for ever. So the physician said in his prospectus;
and so said all the citizens in the city; and there was nothing more
urgent in men's hearts than to be properly painted themselves, and
nothing they took more delight in than to see others painted. There was
in the same city a young man of a very good family but of a somewhat
reckless life, who had reached the age of manhood, and would have
nothing to say to the paint: "To-morrow was soon enough," said he; and
when the morrow came he would still put it off. She might have
continued to do until his death; only, he had a friend of about his own
age and much of his own manners; and this youth, taking a walk in the
public street, with not one fleck of paint upon his body, was suddenly
run down by a water-cart and cut off in the heyday of his nakedness.
This shook the other to the soul; so that I never beheld a man more
earnest to be painted; and on the very same evening, in the presence of
all his family, to appropriate music, and himself weeping aloud, he
received three complete coats and a touch of varnish on the top. The
physician (who was himself affected even to tears) protested he had
never done a job so thorough.
Some two months afterwards, the young man was carried on a stretcher
to the physician's house.
"What is the meaning of this?" he cried, as soon as the door was opened.
"I was to be set free from all the dangers of life; and here have I been
run down by that self-same water-cart, and my leg is broken."
"Dear me!" said the physician. "This is very sad. But I perceive I must
explain to you the action of my paint. A broken bone is a mighty small
affair at the worst of it; and it belongs to a class of accident to which
my paint is quite inapplicable. Sin, my dear young friend, sin is the sole
calamity that a wise man should apprehend; it is against sin that I have
fitted you out; and when you come to be tempted, you will give me
news of my paint."
"Oh!" said the young man, "I did not understand that, and it seems
rather disappointing. But I have no doubt all is for the best; and in the
meanwhile, I shall be obliged to you if you will set my leg."
"That is none of my business," said the physician; "but if your bearers
will carry you round the corner to the surgeon's, I feel sure he will

afford relief."
Some three years later, the young man came running to the physician's
house in a great perturbation. "What is the meaning of this?" he cried.
"Here was I to be set free from the bondage of sin; and I have just
committed forgery, arson and murder."
"Dear me," said the physician. "This is very serious. Off with your
clothes at once." And as soon as the young man had stripped, he
examined him from head to foot. "No," he cried with great relief, "there
is not a flake broken. Cheer up, my young friend, your paint is as good
as new."
"Good God!"