An Angler caught a small Trout, and as he was taking it off the hook,
and going to put it into his basket, it opened its little throat, and
begged most piteously that he would throw it into the river again. The
man demanded what reason it had to expect this indulgence? Why, says
the Fish, because I am so young and so little, that it is not worth
your while taking me now, and certainly I shall be better worth your
notice, if you take me a twelvemonth afterwards, when I shall be grown
a great deal larger. That may be, replied the Angler, but I am sure of
you now; and I am not one of those who quit a certainty in expectation
of an uncertainty.