LXXXIII.
A man dropping from a balloon struck against a soaring eagle.
"I beg your pardon," said he, continuing his descent; "I never could keep off eagles when in my descending node."
"It is agreeable to meet so pleasing a gentleman, even without previous appointment," said the bird, looking admiringly down upon the lessening aeronaut; "he is the very pink of politeness. How extremely nice his liver must be. I will follow him down and arrange his simple obsequies."
This fable is narrated for its intrinsic worth.
LXXXIV.
To escape from a peasant who had come suddenly upon him, an opossum adopted his favourite expedient of counterfeiting death.
"I suppose," said the peasant, "that ninety-nine men in a hundred would go away and leave this poor creature's body to the beasts of prey." [It is notorious that man is the only living thing that will eat the animal.] "But I will give him good burial."
So he dug a hole, and was about tumbling him into it, when a solemn voice appeared to emanate from the corpse: "Let the dead bury their dead!"
"Whatever spirit hath wrought this miracle," cried the peasant, dropping upon his knees, "let him but add the trifling explanation of how the dead can perform this or any similar rite, and I am obedience itself. Otherwise, in goes Mr. 'Possum by these hands."