s hardly
probable that the bird liked this; but it never moved until a large
number of boulders had been discharged; then it fell to and ate them.

"It was very good of you, sir," then said the fowl; "pray tell me to
what virtue I am indebted for this excellent meal."

"To piety," replied the peasant, who, believing that anything able to
devour stones must be a god, was stricken with fear. "I beg you won't
think these were merely cold victuals from my table; I had just
gathered them fresh, and was intending to have them dressed for my
dinner; but I am always hospitable to the deities, and now I suppose I
shall have to go without."

"On the contrary, my pious youth," returned the ostrich, "you shall go
within."

And the man followed the stones.

The falsehoods of the wicked never amount to much.

XVI.

Two thieves went into a farmer's granary and stole a sack of kitchen
vegetables; and, one of them slinging it across his shoulders, they
began to run away. In a moment all the domestic animals and barn-yard
fowls about the place were at their heels, in high clamour, which
threatened to bring the farmer down upon them with his dogs.

"You have no idea how the weight of this sack assists me in escaping,
by increasing my momentum," said the one who carried the plunder;
"suppose _you_ take it."

"Ah!" returned the other, who had been zealously pointing out the way
to safety, and keeping foremost therein, "it is interesting to find
how a common danger makes people confiding. You have a thousand times
said I could not be trusted with valuable booty. It is an humiliating
confession, but I am myself convinced that if I should assume that
sack, and the impetus it confers, you could not depend upon your
dividend."

[Illustration]

"A common danger," was the reply, "seems to stimulate conviction, as
well as confidence."

"Very likely," assented the other, drily; "I am quite too busy to
enter into these subtleties. You will find the subject very ably
treated in the Zend-Avesta."

But the bastinado taught them more in a minute than they would have
gleaned from that excellent work in a fortnight.

If they could only have had the privilege of reading this fable, it
would have taught them more than either.

XVII.

While a man was trying with all his might to cross a fence, a bull ran
to his assistance, and taking him upon his horns, tossed him over.
Seeing the man walking away without making any rema