sion) was peacefully sleeping atop of the modest
eminence to which he had attained, when he was rudely awakened by a
throng of critics, emitting adverse judgment upon the tales he had
builded.

[Illustration]

"Apparently," said he, "I have been guilty of some small grains of
unconsidered wisdom, and the same have proven a bitterness to these
excellent folk, the which they will not abide. Ah, well! those who
produce the Strasburg _pate_ and the feather-pillow are prone to
regard _us_ as rival creators. I presume it is in course of nature for
him who grows the pen to censure the manner of its use."

So speaking, he executed a smile a hand's-breath in extent, and
resumed his airy dream of dropping ducats.

CXXI.

For many years an opossum had anointed his tail with bear's oil, but
it remained stubbornly bald-headed. At last his patience was
exhausted, and he appealed to Bruin himself, accusing him of breaking
faith, and calling him a quack.

"Why, you insolent marsupial!" retorted the bear in a rage; "you
expect my oil to give you hair upon your tail, when it will not give
me even a tail. Why don't you try under-draining, or top-dressing with
light compost?"

They said and did a good deal more before the opossum withdrew his
cold and barren member from consideration; but the judicious fabulist
does not encumber his tale with extraneous matter, lest it be
pointless.

CXXII.

"So disreputable a lot as you are I never saw!" said a sleepy rat to
the casks in a wine-cellar. "Always making night hideous with your
hoops and hollows, and disfiguring the day with your bunged-up
appearance. There is no sleeping when once the wine has got into your
heads. I'll report you to the butler!"

"The sneaking tale-bearer," said the casks. "Let us beat him with our
staves."

"_Requiescat in pace_," muttered a learned cobweb, sententiously.

"Requires a cat in the place, does it?" shrieked the rat. "Then I'm
off!"

To explain all the wisdom imparted by this fable would require the pen
of a pig, and volumes of smoke.

CXXIII.

A giraffe having trodden upon the tail of a poodle, that animal flew
into a blind rage, and wrestled valorously with the invading foot.

"Hullo, sonny!" said the giraffe, looking down, "what are you doing
there?"

"I am fighting!" was the proud reply; "but I don't know that it is any
of your business."

"Oh, I have no desire to mix in," said the good-natured giraffe. "I