"His upper register is weak—abominably weak," said the starling to the lark.
"Perhaps if his voice were trained," suggested the lark.
Meanwhile the frog croaked away lustily, but no one listened to him. "The jury must vote by ballot," he said as he finished the last croak.
"Of course we must," twittered the jury.
The frog won by eight votes to two.
"I voted for the nightingale," whispered the crow to the toad.
"So did I," whispered the toad.
A LOSS.
For many reasons the passing of the poster is to be welcomed. For one thing, it robbed the papers themselves of that element of surprise which is one of life's few spices; for another, it added to life's many complexities by forcing the reader into a hunt through the columns which often ended in disappointment: in other words the poster's promise was not seldom greater than the paper's performance. Then, again, it was often offensive, as when it called for the impeachment of an effete "old gang," many of whose members had joined the perfect new; or redundant, as when it demanded twenty ropes where one would have sufficed.