d; but I am quite satisfied with it."

"I wonder what the young ones will say to it?" replied the
stork-mother.

"Ah! that, indeed, is of the most consequence," said the
stork-father.

_The Quickest Runners._

There was a large reward offered--indeed, there were two rewards
offered, a larger and a lesser one--for the greatest speed, not in one
race alone, but to such as had got on fastest throughout the year.

"I got the highest prize," said the hare. "One had a right to expect
justice when one's own family and best friends were in the council;
but that the snail should have got the second prize I consider as
almost an insult to me."

"No," observed the wooden fence, which had been a witness to the
distribution of the prizes; "you must take diligence and good will
into consideration. That remark was made by several very estimable
persons, and that was also my opinion. To be sure the snail took half
a year to cross the threshold; but he broke his thigh-bone in the
tremendous exertion which that was for him. He devoted himself
entirely to this race; and, moreover, he ran with his house on his
back. All these weighed in his favour, and so he obtained the second
prize."

"I think my claims might also have been taken into consideration,"
said the swallow. "More speedy than I, in flight and motion, I believe
no one has shown himself. And where have I not been? Far, far away!"

"And that is just your misfortune," said the wooden fence. "You gad
about too much. You are always on the wing, ready to start out of the
country when it begins to freeze. You have no love for your
fatherland. You cannot claim any consideration in it."

"But if I were to sleep all the winter through on the moor," inquired
the swallow--"sleep my whole time away--should I be thus entitled to
be taken into consideration?"

"Obtain an affidavit from the old woman of the moor that you did sleep
half the year in your fatherland, then your claims will be taken into
consideration."

"I deserved the first prize instead of the second," said the snail. "I
know very well that the hare only ran from cowardice, whenever he
thought there was danger near. I, on the contrary, made the trial the
business of my life, and I have become a cripple in consequence of my
exertions. If any one had a right to the first prize it was I; but I
make no fuss; I scorn to do so."

"I can declare upon my honour that each prize, at least as far as my
voice in the