A certain people were much given to deploring war. War, they kept insisting, was poor business.
Their King heard them, but he didn't take them seriously. The very first chance he got he picked a quarrel with a neighboring Power, and, that done, he lifted up his voice in the old way.
"The fatherland is in danger!" he cried. "The honor of the nation is assailed! My children, be patriots!"
But they couldn't see him. "Not on your life!" they made answer. "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time!"
Whereupon the King made haste to patch up his quarrel and was very careful forever after not to pick another.
This fable teaches that we have still some distance to go before universal peace can be anything but a joke.
PEDESTRIANS
"You know," said the lady whose motor-car had run down a man, "you must have been walking very carelessly. I am a very careful driver. I have been driving a car for seven years."
"Lady, you've got nothing on me. I've been walking for fifty-four years."