naturally delight in their own
excellences, nothing so disposes them to give credit to another, as his
professions that he is worse than themselves."

The judge nodded and grinned.

"But another word, dear sir--as you feel yourself constrained to commend
the cats and dogs of Leaplow, do you belong to that school of philocats,
who take their revenge for their amenity to the quadrupeds, by berating
their fellow-creatures?"

The judge started, and glanced about him as if he dreaded a thief-taker.
Then earnestly imploring me to respect his situation, he added in a
whisper, that the subject of the people was sacred with him, that
he rarely spoke of them without a reverence, and that his favorable
sentiments in relation to the cats and dogs were not dependent on any
particular merits of the animals themselves, but merely because they
were the people's cats and dogs. Fearful that I might say something
still more disagreeable, the judge hastened to take his leave, and I
never saw him afterward. I make no doubt, however, that in good time his
hair grew as he grew again into favor, and that he found the means to
exhibit the proper length of tail on all suitable occasions.

A crowd in the street now caught my attention. On approaching it, a
colleague who was there was kind enough to explain its cause.

It would seem that certain Leaphighers had been travelling in Leaplow;
and, not satisfied with this liberty, they had actually written books
concerning things that they had seen, and things that they had not
seen. As respects the latter, neither of the public opinions was
very sensitive, although many of them reflected on the Great National
Allegory and the sacred rights of monikins; but as respects the former,
there was a very lively excitement. These writers had the audacity to
say that the Leaplowers had cut off all their caudae, and the whole
community was convulsed at an outrage so unprecedented. It was one thing
to take such a step, and another to have it proclaimed to the world in
books. If the Leaplowers had no tails, it was clearly their own fault.
Nature had formed them with tails. They had bobbed themselves on a
republican principle; and no one's principles ought to be thrown into
his face, in this rude manner, more especially during a moral eclipse.

The dispensers of the essence of lopped tails threatened vengeance;
caricaturists were put in requisition; some grinned, some menaced, some
swore, and all read!

I l