, they put themselves into hostile
array.

"Now come on!" shouted the tortoise, shrinking into the inmost
recesses of his shell.

"All right," shrieked the armadillo, coiling up tightly in his coat of
mail; "I am ready for you!"

And thus these heroes waged the awful fray from morn till dewy eve, at
less than a yard's distance. There has never been anything like it;
their endurance was something marvellous! During the night each
combatant sneaked silently away; and the historian of the period
obscurely alludes to the battle as "the naval engagement of the
future."

CXXX.

[Illustration]

Two hedgehogs having conceived a dislike to a hare, conspired for his
extinction. It was agreed between them that the lighter and more agile
of the two should beat him up, surround him, run him into a ditch,
and drive him upon the thorns of the more gouty and unwieldy
conspirator. It was not a very hopeful scheme, but it was the best
they could devise. There was a chance of success if the hare should
prove willing, and, gambler-like, they decided to take that chance,
instead of trusting to the remote certainty of their victim's death
from natural cause. The doomed animal performed his part as well as
could be reasonably expected of him: every time the enemy's flying
detachment pressed him hard, he fled playfully toward the main body,
and lightly vaulted over, about eight feet above the spines. And this
prickly blockhead had not the practical sagacity to get upon a wall
seven feet and six inches high!

This fable is designed to show that the most desperate chances are
comparatively safe.

CXXXI.

A young eel inhabiting the mouth of a river in India, determined to
travel. Being a fresh-water eel, he was somewhat restricted in his
choice of a route, but he set out with a cheerful heart and very
little luggage. Before he had proceeded very far up-stream he found
the current too strong to be overcome without a ruinous consumption of
coals. He decided to anchor his tail where it then was, and _grow_ up.
For the first hundred miles it was tolerably tedious work, but when he
had learned to tame his impatience, he found this method of progress
rather pleasant than otherwise. But when he began to be caught at
widely separate points by the fishermen of eight or ten different
nations, he did not think it so fine.

This fable teaches that when you extend your residence you multiply
your experiences. A local eel can know