| "IT ROSE LIKE A FOUNTAIN." |
Any boy who has ever attended a school taught by an irascible master will readily imagine the sequel. Isaac Holman recorded the affair in the form of a Latin fable, which was so popular that we printed it. Here it is:
VULPES ET BEER.
Quondam vulpes bottulum poppi beeris in schola tulit, quod in arca reponebat. Sed corda laxa, ob vim beeris, cortex collum reliquit, et beer, spumans, se pavimento effudit. Deinde magister capit unum extremum lori, ci vulpes alterum sentiebat. Hæc fabula docet that, when you bring pop-beer to school, you should tie the string so tight that it can't pop off before lunch-time.
When Jack-in-the-Box saw this fable, he said it was a good fable, and he was proud of his pupil, though some of the tenses were a little out of joint.
Holman said the reason why he put the moral in English was, because that was the important part of it, and ought to be in a language that everybody could understand.
Monkey Roe said he was glad to hear this explanation, as he had been afraid it was because Holman had got to the end of his Latin.
Charlie Garrison, in attempting to criticise the title of the fable, only exposed himself to ridicule.
"It must be a mistake," said he; "for you know you can't eat beer. It's plain enough that it ought to be, Vulpes" (he pronounced this word in one syllable) "drank beer."