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. 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." 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
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