THE VILLAGER AND THE SNAKE
A Villager one frosty day found under a hedge a Snake almost dead with cold. Moved with compassion, and having heard that snake oil was good for the rheumatiz, he took it home and placed it on the hearth, where it shortly began to wake and crawl. Meanwhile, the Villager having gone out to keep an engagement with a man 'round the corner, the Villager's son (who had not drawn a sober breath for a week) entered, and, beholding the Serpent unfolding its plain, unvarnished tail, with the cry, "I've got 'em again!" fled to the office of the nearest Justice of the Peace, swore off and became an apostle of Temperance at $700 a week. The beneficent Snake next bit the Villager's mother-in-law so severely that death soon ended her sufferings—and his; then silently stole away, leaving the Villager deeply and doubly in its debt.
Moral.—A virtuous action is not always its only reward. A snake in the grass is worth two in the boot.
THE OSTRICH AND THE HEN
An Ostrich and a Hen chanced to occupy adjacent apartments, and the former complained loudly that her rest was disturbed by the cackling of her humble neighbour. "Why is it," she finally asked the Hen, "that you make such an intolerable noise?" The Hen replied, "Because I have laid an egg." "Oh no," said the Ostrich, with a superior smile, "it is because you are a Hen and don't know any better."
Moral.—The moral of the foregoing is not very clear, but it contains some reference to the Agitation for Female Suffrage.
THE SENATOR'S LAUNDRY