Count not your bird before you’ve shot it.
Quoth Proverb, “’Twixt the cup and lip
There’s many a slip.”
Not every guest invited sits at table,
So says my fable.
A man once gave a dinner to his friend;
His friend!—his patron I should rather think
By all the loads of meat and drink,
And fruits and gellies without end,
Sent home the morning of the feast.