parable _ol. can._ are not important in a population
which increases so rapidly." In short, I took the first step in crime
and brought myself untold sorrow by casting the babe into the
cauldron.

The next day, somewhat to my surprise, my father, rubbing his hands
with satisfaction, informed me and my mother that he had obtained the
finest quality of oil that was ever seen; that the physicians to whom
he had shown samples had so pronounced it. He added that he had no
knowledge as to how the result was obtained; the dogs had been treated
in all respects as usual, and were of an ordinary breed. I deemed it
my duty to explain--which I did, though palsied would have been my
tongue if I could have foreseen the consequences. Bewailing their
previous ignorance of the advantages of combining their industries, my
parents at once took measures to repair the error. My mother removed
her studio to a wing of the factory building and my duties in
connection with the business ceased; I was no longer required to
dispose of the bodies of the small superfluous, and there was no need
of alluring dogs to their doom, for my father discarded them
altogether, though they still had an honorable place in the name of
the oil. So suddenly thrown into idleness, I might naturally have
been expected to become vicious and dissolute, but I did not. The
holy influence of my dear mother was ever about me to protect me from
the temptations which beset youth, and my father was a deacon in a
church. Alas, that through my fault these estimable persons should
have come to so bad an end!

Finding a double profit in her business, my mother now devoted herself
to it with a new assiduity. She removed not only superfluous and
unwelcome babes to order, but went out into the highways and byways,
gathering in children of a larger growth, and even such adults as she
could entice to the oilery. My father, too, enamored of the superior
quality of oil produced, purveyed for his vats with diligence and
zeal. The conversion of their neighbors into dog-oil became, in
short, the one passion of their lives--an absorbing and overwhelming
greed took possession of their souls and served them in place of a
hope in Heaven--by which, also, they were inspired.

So enterprising had they now become that a public meeting was held and
resolutions passed severely censuring them. It was intimated by the
chairman that any further raids upon the population would be met in a