of the cerulean
orange--the rosy olive! Land of the night-blooming Jesuit, and the
fragrant _laszarone_! It would be heavenly to run down gondolas in the
streets of Venice! I _must_ go to Italy."

"Indeed you must," said the shark, darting suddenly aft, where he had
caught the gleam of shotted canvas through the blue waters.

But it was fated to be otherwise: some days afterwards the ship and
fish passed over a sunken rock which almost grazed the keel. Then the
two parted company, with mutual expressions of tender regard, and a
report which could be traced by those on board to no trustworthy
source.

The foregoing fable shows that a man of good behaviour need not care
for money, and _vice versa_.

CXVIII.

A facetious old cat seeing her kitten sleeping in a bath tub, went
down into the cellar and turned on the hot water. (For the convenience
of the bathers the bath was arranged in that way; you had to undress,
and then go down to the cellar to let on the wet.) No sooner did the
kitten remark the unfamiliar sensation, than he departed thence with a
willingness quite creditable in one who was not a professional
acrobat, and met his mother on the kitchen stairs.

"Aha! my steaming hearty!" cried the elder grimalkin; "I coveted you
when I saw the cook put you in the dinner-pot. If I have a weakness,
it is hare--hare nicely dressed, and partially boiled."

Whereupon she made a banquet of her suffering offspring.[A]

Adversity works a stupendous change in tender youth; many a young man
is never recognized by his parents after having been in hot water.

[Footnote A: Here should have followed the appropriate and obvious
classical allusion. It is known our fabulist was classically educated.
Why, then, this disgraceful omission?--TRANSLATOR.]

CXIX.

"It is a waste of valour for us to do battle," said a lame ostrich to
a negro who had suddenly come upon her in the desert; "let us cast
lots to see who shall be considered the victor, and then go about our
business."

To this proposition the negro readily assented. They cast lots: the
negro cast lots of stones, and the ostrich cast lots of feathers. Then
the former went about his business, which consisted of skinning the
bird.

MORAL.--There is nothing like the arbitrament of chance. That form of
it known as _trile-bi-joorie_ is perhaps as good as any.

CXX.

An author who had wrought a book of fables (the merit whereof
transcended expres