ant" is represented by a
Brahmin carrying a goat, and the joke was to persuade the Brahmin that
he was carrying a dog. "How is this, friend," says one, "that you, a
Brahmin, carry on your back such an unclean animal as a dog?" "It is not
a dog," says the Brahmin, "but a goat;" and trudged on. Presently
another made the same remark, and the Brahmin, beginning to doubt, took
down the goat to look at it. Convinced that the creature was really a
goat, he went on, when presently a third made the same remark. The
Brahmin, now fully persuaded that his eyes were befooling him, threw
down the goat and went away without it; whereupon the three companions
took possession of it and cooked it.

In _Tyll Eulenspiegel_ we have a similar hoax. Eulenspiegel sees a man
with a piece of green cloth, which he resolves to obtain. He employs two
confederates, both priests. Says Eulenspiegel to the man, "What a famous
piece of blue cloth! Where did you get it?" "Blue, you fool! why, it is
green." After a short contention, a bet is made, and the question in
dispute is referred to the first comer. This was a confederate, and he
at once decided that the cloth was blue. "You are both in the same
boat," says the man, "which I will prove by the priest yonder." The
question being put to the priest, is decided against the man, and the
three rogues divide the cloth amongst them.

Another version is in novel 8 of Fortini. The joke was that certain kids
he had for sale were capons.--See Dunlop, _History of Fiction_, viii.
art. "Ser Giovanni."

=Scone= [_Skoon_], a palladium stone. It was erected in Icolmkil for the
coronation of Fergus Eric, and was called the _Lia-Fail_ of Ireland.
Fergus, the son of Fergus Eric, who led the Dalriads to Argyllshire,
removed it to Scone; and Edward I. took it to London. It still remains
in Westminster Abbey, where it forms the support of Edward the
Confessor's chair, which forms the coronation chair of the British
monarchs.

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.

Lardner, _History of Scotland_, i. 67 (1832).

Where'er this stone is placed, the fates decree,
The Scottish race shall there the sovereigns be.

[Asterism] Of course, the "Scottish race" is the dynasty of the Stuarts
and their successors.

=Scotch Guards=, in the service of the French kings, were called his
_garde du corps_. The origin of the guard was this: When St. Louis
entere