fe.

[Footnote A: I confess my inability to translate this word: it may
mean "flinders."--TRANSLATOR.]

LXXIX.

"I should like to climb up you, if you don't mind," cried an ivy to a
young oak.

"Oh, certainly; come along," was the cheerful assent.

So she started up, and finding she could grow faster than he, she
wound round and round him until she had passed up all the line she
had. The oak, however, continued to grow, and as she could not
disengage her coils, she was just lifted out by the root. So that ends
the oak-and-ivy business, and removes a powerful temptation from the
path of the young writer.

LXXX.

A merchant of Cairo gave a grand feast. In the midst of the revelry,
the great doors of the dining-hall were pushed open from the outside,
and the guests were surprised and grieved by the advent of a crocodile
of a tun's girth, and as long as the moral law.

"Thought I 'd look in," said he, simply, but not without a certain
grave dignity.

"But," cried the host, from the top of the table, "I did not invite
any saurians."

"No--I know yer didn't; it's the old thing, it is: never no wacancies
for saurians--saurians should orter keep theirselves _to_
theirselves--no saurians need apply. I got it all by 'eart, I tell
yer. But don't give yerself no distress; I didn't come to beg; thank
'eaven I ain't drove to that yet--leastwise I ain't done it. But I
thought as 'ow yer'd need a dish to throw slops and broken wittles in
it; which I fetched along this 'ere."

And the willing creature lifted off the cover by erecting the upper
half of his head till the snout of him smote the ceiling.

Open servitude is better than covert begging.

LXXXI.

A gander being annoyed by the assiduous attendance of his ugly
reflection in the water, determined that he would prosecute future
voyages in a less susceptible element. So he essayed a sail upon the
placid bosom of a clay-bank. This kind of navigation did not meet his
expectations, however, and he returned with dogged despair to his
pond, resolved to make a final cruise and go out of commission. He was
delighted to find that the clay adhering to his hull so defiled the
water that it gave back no image of him. After that, whenever he left
port, he was careful to be well clayed along the water-line.

The lesson of this is that if all geese are alike, we can banish
unpleasant reflections by befouling ourselves. This is worth knowing.

L