Fantastic Fables | Page 9

his guitar,
awaited the inspection. When the Noser came to the note he asked,
"What's this?"
"That," said the Assistant Pocketer of Deposits, "is one of our
liabilities."
"A liability?" exclaimed the Noser. "Nay, nay, an asset. That is what
you mean, doubtless."

"Therein you err," the Pocketer explained; "that note was written in the
bank with our own pen, ink, and paper, and we have not paid a
stationery bill for six months."
"Ah, I see," the Noser said, thoughtfully; "it is a liability. May I ask
how you expect to meet it?"
"With fortitude, please God," answered the Assistant Pocketer, his eyes
to Heaven raising - "with fortitude and a firm reliance on the laxity of
the law."
"Enough, enough," exclaimed the faithful servant of the State, choking
with emotion; "here is a certificate of solvency."
"And here is a bottle of ink," the grateful financier said, slipping it into
the other's pocket; "it is all that we have."

The Cat and the King

A CAT was looking at a King, as permitted by the proverb.
"Well," said the monarch, observing her inspection of the royal person,
"how do you like me?"
"I can imagine a King," said the Cat, "whom I should like better."
"For example?"
"The King of the Mice."
The sovereign was so pleased with the wit of the reply that he gave her
permission to scratch his Prime Minister's eyes out.

The Literary Astronomer

THE Director of an Observatory, who, with a thirty-six-inch refractor,
had discovered the moon, hastened to an Editor, with a four-column
account of the event.
"How much?" said the Editor, sententiously, without looking up from
his essay on the circularity of the political horizon.
"One hundred and sixty dollars," replied the man who had discovered
the moon.
"Not half enough," was the Editor's comment.
"Generous man!" cried the Astronomer, glowing with warm and
elevated sentiments, "pay me, then, what you will."
"Great and good friend," said the Editor, blandly, looking up from his
work, "we are far asunder, it seems. The paying is to be done by you."
The Director of the Observatory gathered up the manuscript and went
away, explaining that it needed correction; he had neglected to dot an
m.

The Lion and the Rattlesnake

A MAN having found a Lion in his path undertook to subdue him by
the power of the human eye; and near by was a Rattlesnake engaged in
fascinating a small bird.
"How are you getting on, brother?" the Man called out to the other
reptile, without removing his eyes from those of the Lion.
"Admirably," replied the serpent. "My success is assured; my victim
draws nearer and nearer in spite of her efforts."

"And mine," said the Man, "draws nearer and nearer in spite of mine.
Are you sure it is all right?"
"If you don't think so," the reptile replied as well as he then could, with
his mouth full of bird, "you better give it up."
A half-hour later, the Lion, thoughtfully picking his teeth with his
claws, told the Rattlesnake that he had never in all his varied
experience in being subdued, seen a subduer try so earnestly to give it
up. "But," he added, with a wide, significant smile, "I looked him into
countenance."

The Man with No Enemies

AN Inoffensive Person walking in a public place was assaulted by a
Stranger with a Club, and severely beaten.
When the Stranger with a Club was brought to trial, the complainant
said to the Judge:
"I do not know why I was assaulted; I have not an enemy in the world."
"That," said the defendant, "is why I struck him."
"Let the prisoner be discharged," said the Judge; "a man who has no
enemies has no friends. The courts are not for such."

The Alderman and the Raccoon

"I SEE quite a number of rings on your tail," said an Alderman to a
Raccoon that he met in a zoological garden.
"Yes," replied the Raccoon, "and I hear quite a number of tales on your

ring."
The Alderman, being of a sensitive, retiring disposition, shrank from
further comparison, and, strolling to another part of the garden, stole
the camel.

The Flying-Machine

AN Ingenious Man who had built a flying-machine invited a great
concourse of people to see it go up. At the appointed moment,
everything being ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power.
The machine immediately broke through the massive substructure upon
which it was builded, and sank out of sight into the earth, the aeronaut
springing out barely in time to save himself.
"Well," said he, "I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness of
my details. The defects," he added, with a look at the ruined brick-work,