Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

During a distressing famine in China a starving man met a fat pig, who, seeing no chance of escape, walked confidently up to the superior animal, and said:

"Awful famine! isn't it?"

"Quite dreadful!" replied the man, eyeing him with an evident purpose: "almost impossible to obtain meat."

"Plenty of meat, such as it is, but no corn. Do you know, I have been compelled to eat so many of your people, I don't believe there is an ounce of pork in my composition."

"And I so many that I have lost all taste for pork."

"Terrible thing this cannibalism!"

"Depends upon which character you try it in; it is terrible to be eaten."

"You are very brutal!"

"You are very fat."

"You look as if you would take my life."

"You look as if you would sustain mine."

"Let us 'pull sticks,'" said the now desperate animal, "to see which of us shall die."

"Good!" assented the man: "I'll pull this one."

So saying, he drew a hedge-stake from the ground, and stained it with the brain of that unhappy porker.

MORAL.-An empty stomach has no ears.

An ox meeting a man on the highway, asked him for a pinch of snuff, whereupon the man fled back along the road in extreme terror.

"Don't be alarmed," said a horse whom he met; "the ox won't bite you."

The man gave one stare and dashed across the meadows.

"Well," said a sheep, "I wouldn't be afraid of a horse; he won't kick."

The man shot like a comet into the forest.

"Look where you're going there, or I'll thrash the life out of you!" screamed a bird into whose nest he had blundered.

Frantic with fear, the man leapt into the sea.

"By Jove! how you frightened me," said a small shark.

The man was dejected, and felt a sense of injury. He seated himself moodily on the bottom, braced up his chin with his knees, and thought for an hour. Then he beckoned to the fish who had made the last remark.

"See here, I say," said he, "I wish you would just tell me what in thunder this all means."

"Ever read any fables?" asked the shark.

"No-yes-well, the catechism, the marriage service, and-"

"Oh, bother!" said the fish, playfully, smiling clean back to the pectoral fins; "get out of this and bolt your ?sop!"

The man did get out and bolted.

[This fable teaches that its worthy author was drunk as a loon.-TRANSLATOR.]

Having fastened his gaze upon a sparrow, a rattlesnake sprung open his spanning jaws, and invited her to enter.

"I should be most happy," said the bird, not daring to betray her helpless condition, but anxious by any subterfuge to get the serpent to remove his fascinating regard, "but I am lost in contemplation of yonder green sunset, from which I am unable to look away for more than a minute. I shall turn to it presently."

"Do, by all means," said the serpent, with a touch of irony in his voice. "There is nothing so improving as a good, square, green sunset."

"Did you happen to observe that man standing behind you with a club?" continued the sparrow. "Handsome fellow! Fifteen cubits high, with seven heads, and very singularly attired; quite a spectacle in his way."

"I don't seem to care much for men," said the snake. "Every way inferior to serpents-except in malice."

"But he is accompanied by a really interesting child," persisted the bird, desperately.

The rattlesnake reflected deeply. He soliloquized as follows:

"There is a mere chance-say about one chance to ten thousand million-that this songster is speaking the truth. One chance in ten thousand million of seeing a really interesting child is worth the sacrifice demanded; I'll make it."

So saying, he removed his glittering eyes from the bird (who immediately took wing) and looked behind him. It is needless to say there was no really interesting child there-nor anywhere else.

MORAL.-Mendacity (so called from the inventors) is a very poor sort of dacity; but it will serve your purpose if you draw it sufficiently strong.