'A modest manner fits a maid,
And Patience is a man's adorning;
But brides may kiss, nor do amiss,
And men may draw, at scathe and scorning.'
'Yet a man should measure his own strength first,' said the Rajah, smiling; 'how did you fare against King Jewel-plume's fellows?'
'Very scurvily,' replied Long-bill. "Thou rascal Crane," they cried, "dost thou feed on his soil, and revile our Sovereign? That is past bearing!" And thereat they all pecked at me. Then they began again: "Thou thick-skulled Crane! that King of thine is a goose—a web-footed lord of littleness—and thou art but a frog in a well to bid us serve him—- him forsooth!—
'Serving narrow-minded masters dwarfs high natures to their size:—
Seen before a convex mirror, elephants do show as mice.'
Bad kings are only strong enough to spoil good vassals—as a fiction once was mightier than a herd of elephants. You know it, don't you?—
'Mighty may prove things insignificant:—
A tale of moonshine turned an elephant.'
'No! how was that?' I asked.
The birds related—