eaf when you lifted me in that abrupt manner, and I
did not quite follow your remarks. Did I understand you to mention my name
in connection with those flutterers?"

"I said the time would arrive when you would be even as they."

"I," exclaimed the Caterpillar, "I retrograde to the level of a Butterfly!
Is not the ideal of creation impersonated in me already?"

"I was not aware of that," replied the Philosopher, "although," he added in
a conciliatory tone, "far be it from me to deny you the possession of many
interesting qualities."

"You probably refer to my agility," suggested the Caterpillar; "or perhaps
to my abstemiousness?"

"I was not referring to either," returned the Philosopher.

"To my utility to mankind?"

"Not by any manner of means."

"To what then?"

"Well, if you must know, the best thing about you appears to me to be the
prospect you enjoy of ultimately becoming a Butterfly."

The Caterpillar erected himself upon his tail, and looked sternly at the
Philosopher. The Philosopher's countenance fell. A thrush, darting from an
adjacent tree, seized the opportunity and the insect, and bore the latter
away in his bill. At the same moment the shower prognosticated by the Sage
burst forth, scattering the Butterflies in all directions, drenching the
Philosopher, whose foresight had not assumed the shape of an umbrella, and
spoiling his new hat. But he had ample consolation in the superiority of
his head. And the Caterpillar was right too, for after all he never did
become a Butterfly.

TRUTH AND HER COMPANIONS

_Jupiter_. Daughter Truth, is this a befitting manner of presenting
yourself before your divine father? You are positively dripping; the floor
of my celestial mansion would be a swamp but for your praiseworthy economy
in wearing apparel. Whence, in the name of the Naiads, do you come?

_Truth_. From the bottom of a well, father.

_Jupiter_. I thought, my daughter, that you had descended upon earth in the
capacity of a benefactress of men rather than of frogs.

_Truth_. Such, indeed, was my purpose, father, and I accordingly repaired
to the great city.

_Jupiter_. The city of the Emperor Apollyon?

_Truth_. The same; and I there obtained an audience of the monarch.

_Jupiter_. What passed?

_Truth_. I took the liberty of observing to him, father, that, having
obtained his throne by perjury, and cemented it by blood, and maintained it
by hypocrisy, he could entertain no hope of