d with fur like our own,
only richer looking and much more beautiful, and who seemed so modest
and benevolent that it did my heart good to look at her."

"Ah, my son," replied the Old Mouse, "learn while you live to distrust
appearances. The first strange creature was nothing but a Fowl, that
will ere long be killed, and, when put on a dish in the pantry, we may
make a delicious supper of his bones, while the other was a nasty, sly,
and bloodthirsty hypocrite of a Cat, to whom no food is so welcome as a
young and juicy Mouse like yourself."

The Wolf and the Mastiff

A Wolf, who was almost skin and bone, so well did the Dogs of the
neighbourhood keep guard over their masters' property, met, one
moonshiny night, a sleek Mastiff, who was, moreover, as strong as he
was fat. The Wolf would gladly have supped off him, but saw that there
would first be a great fight, for which, in his condition, he was not
prepared; so, bidding the Dog good-evening very humbly, he praised his
prosperous looks.

"It would be easy for you," replied the Mastiff, "to get as fat as I am
if you liked. Quit this forest, where you and your fellows live so
wretchedly, and often die with hunger. Follow me, and you will fare
much better.'

"What shall I have to do?" asked the Wolf.

"Almost nothing," answered the Dog; "only chase away the beggars and
fawn upon the folks of the house. You will, in return, be paid with
all sorts of nice things--bones of fowls and pigeons--to say nothing of
many a friendly pat on the head."

The Wolf, at the picture of so much comfort, nearly shed tears of joy.
They trotted off together, but, as they went along, the Wolf noticed a
bare spot on the Dog's neck.

"What is that mark?" said he. "Oh, nothing," said the Dog.

"How nothing?" urged the Wolf. "Oh, the merest trifle," answered the
Dog; "the collar which I wear when I am tied up is the cause of it."

"Tied up!" exclaimed the Wolf, with a sudden stop; "tied up? Can you
not always run where you please, then?"

"Well, not quite always," said the Mastiff; "but what can that matter?"

"It matters so much to me," rejoined the Wolf, "that your lot shall not
be mine at any price"; and, leaping away, he ran once more to his
native forest.

The Tail of the Serpent

The Tail of a Serpent once rebelled against the Head, and said that it
was a great shame that one end of any animal should always have its
way, and drag the other after it, whether i