“Can do more than we can?” said the wolf.
“Wear things on their feet?” cried they all. “On the face of it your story is not true. We know that such things are not worn on the feet. How could they be?”
“Of course they could not,” said the bear; “it is false.”
“It must be false,” cried all the birds and beasts. “You must leave the wood,” they said to the owl. “What you say can not be true. You are not fit to live with us. You have said what you know is false. It must be, of course.”
And they chased the poor old owl out of the wood, and would not let him come back.
“It is true for all that,” said the owl.
And so it was.—The Nursery.
(1668)
INTRODUCTIONS
Some introductions to sermons, speeches, articles, etc., would gain if they were made as brief as the speech of this mayor: