d any
information of unnatural beings. I have not eaten information, or
conversed with owls. I confined myself to original thoughts. Will some
one now be so good as to fill the kettle with water, and put it on?
Let there be plenty of fire under it. Let the water boil--boil
briskly; then throw the sausage-stick in. Will his majesty the King of
the Mice be so condescending as to put his tail into the boiling pot,
and stir it about? The longer he stirs it, the richer the soup will
become. It costs nothing, and requires no other ingredients--it only
needs to be stirred."

"Cannot another do this?" asked the king.

"No," said the mouse. "The effect can only be produced by the royal
tail."

The water was boiled, and the King of the Mice prepared himself for
the operation, though it was rather dangerous. He stuck his tail out,
as mice are in the habit of doing in the dairy, when they skim the
cream off the dish with their tails; but he had no sooner popped his
tail into the warm steam than he drew it out and sprang down.

"Of course you are my queen," said he; "but we shall wait for the soup
till our golden wedding, and the poor in my kingdom will have
something to rejoice over in the future."

So the nuptials were celebrated; but many of the mice, when they went
home, said, "It could not well be called soup of a sausage-stick, but
rather soup of a mouse's tail."

They allowed that each of the narratives was very well told, but the
whole might have been better. "I, for instance, would have related my
adventures in such and such words...."

These were the critics, and they are always so wise--afterwards.

* * * * *

And this history went round the world. Opinions were divided about it,
but the historian himself remained unmoved. And this is best in great
things and in small.

_The Neck of a Bottle._

Yonder, in the confined, crooked streets, amidst several poor-looking
houses, stood a narrow high tenement, run up of framework that was
much misshapen, with corners and ends awry. It was inhabited by poor
people, the poorest of whom looked out from the garret, where, outside
the little window, hung in the sunshine an old, dented bird-cage,
which had not even a common cage-glass, but only the neck of a bottle
inverted, with a cork below, and filled with water. An old maid stood
near the open window; she had just been putting some chickweed into
the cage, wherein a little linnet