A baa-sheep was lying under the paw of a black-maned lion. Whatever was going to be done had to be done quickly. A thought flashed upon the sheep and he said:

   "Most dread lord and master, I have heard your voice extolled beyond that of all others. Will you not sing me a little selection from Wagner before I die?"

   The lion, touched in his vanity, immediately started up and roared away until the goose-flesh stood out on the rocks. When he had finished, the sheep was in tears.

   "What means this?" growled the lion in a rage. "Do you presume to criticise my singing?"

   "Oh, no!" sobbed the sheep. "That is not it. But I have heard that wool was the worst thing in the world for the voice, and when I think of the ruin of that beautiful organ of yours, consequent upon eating me, I weep to think that I was not born hairless."

   The lion regarded him out of the corner of his eye. Then, in his grandest manner, said: "Run along home to your ma, little sheep; I was only playing with you," and walked off through the forest with a great deal of dignity.

   A dog with a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a bridge over a placid stream. On looking down he saw another dog with a precisely similar piece of meat in the water below him. "That's a singular incident," he thought to himself as he prepared to jump in. "But hold a minute! The angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of reflection. Upon reflection, I find that the other dog and the meat are only optical phenomena." And he trotted on his way to Boston without further thought about the matter.

   A fox stood under an apple-tree and gazed up earnestly at the globes of yellow lusciousness. "How sad, for the sake of an old-time piece of literature," he said, "that the fox is a carnivorous animal and doesn't care particularly about fruit!"

   We all have plenty of faults without the Truly Good taking the trouble to invent them for us.

   A crow, having stolen a piece of flesh, perched in a tree to enjoy it at leisure. A fox saw her, and, being hungry, thought he would employ a little diplomacy to get the meat away from her.

   "What a prima-donna the crow would be," he said, looking at her with mock admiration, "if she only had a voice proportional to her other attractions!"

   

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