e fatted calf; but what I can I
will do."

And she killed him instead.

_Mot herl yaff ecti onk nocksal loth ervir tu esperfec tlyc old_.[A]

[Footnote A: The learned reader will appreciate the motive which has
prompted me to give this moral only in the original Persian.--TRANSLATOR.]

XCI.

"There, now," said a kitten, triumphantly, laying a passive mouse at
the feet of her mother. "I flatter myself I am coming on with a
reasonable degree of rapidity. What will become of the minor
quadrupeds when I have attained my full strength and ferocity, it is
mournful to conjecture!"

"Did he give you much trouble?" inquired the aged ornament of the
hearth-side, with a look of tender solicitude.

"Trouble!" echoed the kitten, "I never had such a fight in all my
life! He was a downright savage--in his day."

"My Falstaffian issue," rejoined the Tabby, dropping her eyelids and
composing her head for a quiet sleep, "the above is a _toy_ mouse."

XCII.

A crab who had travelled from the mouth of the Indus all the way to
Ispahan, knocked, with much chuckling, at the door of the King's
physician.

"Who's there?" shouted the doctor, from his divan within.

"A bad case of _cancer_," was the complacent reply.

"Good!" returned the doctor; "I'll _cure_ you, my friend."

So saying, he conducted his facetious patient into the kitchen, and
potted him in pickle. It cured him--of practical jocularity.

May the fable heal _you_, if you are afflicted with that form of evil.

XCIII.

A certain magician owned a learned pig, who had lived a cleanly
gentlemanly life, achieving great fame, and winning the hearts of all
the people. But perceiving he was not happy, the magician, by a
process easily explained did space permit, transformed him into a man.
Straightway the creature abandoned his cards, his timepiece, his
musical instruments, and all other devices of his profession, and
betook him to a pool of mud, wherein he inhumed himself to the tip of
his nose.

"Ten minutes ago," said the magician reprovingly, "you would have
scorned to do an act like that."

"True," replied the biped, with a contented grunt; "I was then a
learned pig; I am now a learned man."

XCIV.

"Nature has been very kind to her creatures," said a giraffe to an
elephant. "For example, your neck being so very short, she has given
you a proboscis wherewith to reach your food; and I having no
proboscis, she has bestowed upo