THE DOG AND THE RAT.

A great Dog caught a small but thievish Rat. “O, sir!” said the Rat, “pray let me go. Next year I shall have grown bigger, and then you can kill me.”—“No, no,” said the Dog; “I have got you now, but next year I am not sure of getting you again.”

Check a small fault at once.


THE BEAVER AND THE FLY.

A busy little Beaver had been working for months, arranging his house, by the river side. “Why do you take all that trouble?—said a lazy bluebottle Fly; “I never work.”—“That is the reason,” answered the Beaver, “why so many of you die of cold and hunger, in winter.”

Idleness comes to ruin, at last.