THE DOG AND THE SPARE RIB.—A mastiff crossing a bridge and bearing in his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately observed that the shadow of the aforesaid in the water had disappeared.
Moral: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.
THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE.—A donkey one day was quietly munching thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots, with his tail high in the air.
Moral: This fable teaches what an ass he was.
THE MOUSE AND THE CAT.—A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the mouse.
Nobody killed.
Moral: This little fable doesn’t teach anything.
PRONUNCIATION.
The difficulty of applying rules to the pronunciation of our language may be illustrated in two lines, wherein the combination of the letters ough is pronounced in no less than seven different ways, viz: as o, uf, off, up, ow, oo, and ock.