_Moral._--Honesty is sometimes the best policy.

THE VILLAGER AND THE SNAKE

A Villager one frosty day found under a hedge a Snake almost dead with
cold. Moved with compassion, and having heard that snake oil was good
for the rheumatiz, he took it home and placed it on the hearth, where
it shortly began to wake and crawl. Meanwhile, the Villager having gone
out to keep an engagement with a man 'round the corner, the Villager's
son (who had not drawn a sober breath for a week) entered, and,
beholding the Serpent unfolding its plain, unvarnished tail, with the
cry, "I've got 'em again!" fled to the office of the nearest Justice of
the Peace, swore off and became an apostle of Temperance at $700 a
week. The beneficent Snake next bit the Villager's mother-in-law so
severely that death soon ended her sufferings--and his; then silently
stole away, leaving the Villager deeply and doubly in its debt.

_Moral._--A virtuous action is not always its only reward. A snake in
the grass is worth two in the boot.

THE OSTRICH AND THE HEN

An Ostrich and a Hen chanced to occupy adjacent apartments, and the
former complained loudly that her rest was disturbed by the cackling of
her humble neighbour. "Why is it," she finally asked the Hen, "that you
make such an intolerable noise?" The Hen replied, "Because I have laid
an egg." "Oh no," said the Ostrich, with a superior smile, "it is
because you are a Hen and don't know any better."

_Moral._--The moral of the foregoing is not very clear, but it contains
some reference to the Agitation for Female Suffrage.

THE SENATOR'S LAUNDRY

Signora Mirandolina Rocca, who was the landlady of the house where the
Club were lodging, was a widow, of about forty years of age, still
fresh and blooming, with a merry dark eye, and much animation of
features. Sitting usually in the small room which they passed on the
way to their apartments, they had to stop to get their keys, or to
leave them when they went out, and Buttons and Dick frequently stopped
to have a little conversation. The rest, not being able to speak
Italian, contented themselves with smiles; the Senator particularly,
who gave the most beaming of smiles both on going and on returning.
Sometimes he even tried to talk to her in his usual adaptation of
broken English, spoken in loud tones to the benighted but fascinating
foreigner. Her attention to Dick during his sickness increased the
Senator's admiration