A rat, finding a file, smelt it all over, bit it gently, and observed
that, as it did not seem to be rich enough to produce dyspepsia, he
would venture to make a meal of it. So he gnawed it into
_smithareens_[A] without the slightest injury to his teeth. With his
morals the case was somewhat different. For the file was a file of
newspapers, and his system became so saturated with the "spirit of the
Press" that he went off and called his aged father a "lingering
contemporary;" advised the correction of brief tails by amputation;
lauded the skill of a quack rodentist for money; and, upon what would
otherwise have been his death-bed, essayed a lie of such phenomenal
magnitude that it stuck in his throat, and prevented him breathing
his last. All this crime, and misery, and other nonsense, because he
was too lazy to worry about and find a file of nutritious fables.
This tale shows the folly of eating everything you happen to fancy.
Consider, moreover, the danger of such a course to your neighbour's
wife.
[Footnote A: I confess my inability to translate this word: it may
mean "flinders."--TRANSLATOR.]