A Fox being caught in a trap, escaped after much difficulty with the
loss of his tail. He was, however, a good deal ashamed of appearing in
public without this ornament, and at last, to avoid being singular and
ridiculous in the eyes of his own species, he formed the project of
calling together an assembly of Foxes, and of persuading them that the
docking of their tails was a fashion that would be very agreeable and
becoming. Accordingly he made a long harangue to them for that purpose,
and endeavoured chiefly to shew the awkwardness and inconvenience of a
Fox’s tail, adding that they were quite useless, and that they would be
a very great deal better without them. He asserted, that what he had
only conjectured and imagined before, he now found by experience to be
true, for he never enjoyed himself so much, and found himself so easy
as he had done since he cut off his tail. He then looked round with a
brisk air, to see what proselytes he had gained; when a sly old Fox
in company answered him, with a leer: I believe you may have found a
convenience in parting with your tail, and perhaps when we are in the
same circumstances, we may do so too.