XXXV.
Some doves went to a hawk, and asked him to protect them from a kite.
"That I will," was the cheerful reply; "and when I am admitted into the dovecote, I shall kill more of you in a day than the kite did in a century. But of course you know this; you expect to be treated in the regular way."
So he entered the dovecote, and began preparations for a general slaughter. But the doves all set upon him and made exceedingly short work of him. With his last breath he asked them why, being so formidable, they had not killed the kite. They replied that they had never seen any kite.
XXXVI.
A defeated warrior snatched up his aged father, and, slinging him across his shoulders, plunged into the wilderness, followed by the weary remnant of his beaten army. The old gentleman liked it.
"See!" said he, triumphantly, to the flying legion; "did you ever hear of so dutiful and accommodating a son? And he's as easy under the saddle as an old family horse!"
"I rather think," replied the broken and disordered battalion, with a grin, "that Mr. Æneas once did something of this kind. But his father had thoughtfully taken an armful of lares and penates; and the accommodating nature of his son was, therefore, more conspicuous. If I might venture to suggest that you take up my shield and scimitar—"