caterpillar had crawled painfully to the top of a hop-pole, and not
finding anything there to interest him, began to think of descending.

"Now," soliloquized he, "if I only had a pair of wings, I should be
able to manage it very nicely."

So saying, he turned himself about to go down, but the heat of his
previous exertion, and that of the sun, had by this time matured him
into a butterfly.

"Just my luck!" he growled, "I never wish for anything without getting
it. I did not expect this when I came out this morning, and have
nothing prepared. But I suppose I shall have to stand it."

So he spread his pinions and made for the first open flower he saw.
But a spider happened to be spending the summer in that vegetable, and
it was not long before Mr. Butterfly was wishing himself back atop of
that pole, a simple caterpillar.

He had at last the pleasure of being denied a desire.

_Haec fabula docet_ that it is not a good plan to call at houses
without first ascertaining who is at home there.

IX.

It is related of a certain Tartar priest that, being about to
sacrifice a pig, he observed tears in the victim's eyes.

"Now, I'd like to know what is the matter with _you_?" he asked.

"Sir," replied the pig, "if your penetration were equal to that of the
knife you hold, you would know without inquiring; but I don't mind
telling you. I weep because I know I shall be badly roasted."

"Ah," returned the priest, meditatively, having first killed the pig,
"we are all pretty much alike: it is the bad roasting that frightens
us. Mere death has no terrors."

From this narrative learn that even priests sometimes get hold of only
half a truth.

X.

A dog being very much annoyed by bees, ran, quite accidentally, into
an empty barrel lying on the ground, and looking out at the bung-hole,
addressed his tormenters thus:

"Had you been temperate, stinging me only one at a time, you might
have got a good deal of fun out of me. As it is, you have driven me
into a secure retreat; for I can snap you up as fast as you come in
through the bung-hole. Learn from this the folly of intemperate zeal."

When he had concluded, he awaited a reply. There wasn't any reply; for
the bees had never gone near the bung-hole; they went in the same way
as he did, and made it very warm for him.

The lesson of this fable is that one cannot stick to his pure reason
while quarrelling with bees.

XI.

A fox and a duck havi