People are not always such asses as they seem to us.
[Illustration: The Monkey and the Ass.]
The Merchant and the Fool.
A merchant of horses was driving his stock to the market. On the road he
met a venerable old fool, who offered to buy his entire stock.
"It is this way," said the intended purchaser, "I will take your horses
now, and whenever I find use for one, I will send you the money for it."
"Now the gods be lenient to folly!" exclaimed the indignant merchant.
"Man, Man! where in the realm of idiocy did you get your knowledge of
business?"
"I ran a pay-on-publication journal for ten years," said the fool with
asperity.
But the merchant had vanished in a cloud of oaths and dust.
[Illustration: The Merchant and the Fool.]
The Wolf and the Sheep.
A wolf that had been left for dead by the dogs lay not far from a running
brook. He felt that one good drink might save his life. Just then a sheep
passed near.
"Pray, sister," said he very gently, but with a sinister twinkle of his eye
teeth, "bring me some water from yon stream."
"Certainly," said the sheep, and she brought him a glass in which she had
poured a few knock-out drops. As she sat on his corpse a little later she
moralized in this manner: "Some clever people are wicked, but all wicked
people are not clever by a d----d sight."
[Illustration: The Wolf and the Sheep.]
The Ambitious Hippopotamus.
A hippopotamus who had dwelt contentedly for years on the banks of a reedy
stream, looked up one day and saw an eagle.
She became immediately fired with a desire to fly. Having lived a staid and
respectable life that could not but find favor in the eyes of the gods, she
raised her voice in prayer.
Jove smiled a little, but granted her request.
On the instant a pair of broad, powerful wings were affixed to her
shoulders.
She was naturally a trifle nervous about trying them at first, but finally
mustered up her courage.
Away she swooped, and with a pardonable vanity took her course over a piece
of jungle where some old friends lived.
Precisely thirty-eight seconds later a convention of animals, all swearing
and trembling with fright, were trying to conceal themselves in the same
three-by-four hole in the ground.
The effect on the other animals disconcerted the good-natured hippopotamus
to such an extent that she lost control of herself and sailed through the
forest like an avalanche on a bender. Down went the trees and crack went
the branches, while horror-stricken beasts with bristling hair split the
welkin with their shrieks.
The hippopotamus made for home at her best speed. Arriving over the
familiar spot, she let go all holds and came down ker-splash in the mud,
knocking the astonished little hippopotamuses out into mid-stream.
"Oh, Jupiter! take 'em off!" she gasped. "I now see that the hippopotamus
was not intended to fly."