ONCE UPON A TIME.
Transmigration.
Once upon a time there was an ostrich who, though very ostrichy, was even more of an egoist. He thought only of himself. That is not a foible peculiar to ostriches, but this particular fowl—and he was very particular—was notable for it. "Where do I come in?" was a question written all over him—from his ridiculous and inadequate head, down his long neck, on his plump fluffy body, and so to his exceedingly flat and over-sized feet.
It was in Afric's burning sand—to be precise, at the Cape—that, on the approach of danger, the ostrich secreted his self-centred head, and here from time to time his plumes were plucked from him for purposes of trade.
Now it happened that in London there was a theatre given up to a season of foreign opera, and, this theatre having been built by one of those gifted geniuses so common among theatre architects, it followed that the balcony (into which, of course, neither the architect nor the manager for whom it was built had ever strayed) contained a number of seats from which no view of the stage was visible at all—unless one stood up, and then the people behind were deprived of their view. This, of course, means nothing to architects or managers. The thought that jolly anticipatory parties of simple folk bent upon a happy evening may be depressed and dashed by a position suffering from such disabilities could not concern architects and managers, for some imagination would be needed to understand it.