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FABLES FOR THE FRIVOLOUS

_(With Apologies to La Fontaine)_

By GUY WETMORE CARRYL

With Illustrations by Peter Newell


1898




FABLES FOR THE FRIVOLOUS


TO MY FATHER





NOTE:
I have pleasure in acknowledging the courteous permission
the editors to reprint in this form such of the following fables
were originally published in Harper's periodicals, in _Life_,
and _Munsey's Magazine_.

G. W. C.





                 CONTENTS

THE AMBITIOUS FOX AND THE UNAPPROACHABLE GRAPES

THE PERSEVERING TORTOISE AND THE PRETENTIOUS HARE

THE PATRICIAN PEACOCKS AND THE OVERWEENING JAY

THE ARROGANT FROG AND THE SUPERIOR BULL

THE DOMINEERING EAGLE AND THE INVENTIVE BRATLING

THE ICONOCLASTIC RUSTIC AND THE APROPOS ACORN

THE UNUSUAL GOOSE AND THE IMBECILIC WOODCUTTER

THE RUDE RAT AND THE UNOSTENTATIOUS OYSTER

THE URBAN RAT AND THE SUBURBAN RAT

THE IMPECUNIOUS CRICKET AND THE FRUGAL ANT

THE PAMPERED LAPDOG AND THE MISGUIDED ASS

THE VAINGLORIOUS OAK AND THE MODEST BULRUSH

THE INHUMAN WOLF AND THE LAMB SANS GENE

THE SYCOPHANTIC FOX AND THE GULLIBLE RAVEN

THE MICROSCOPIC TROUT AND THE MACHIAVELIAN FISHERMAN

THE CONFIDING PEASANT AND THE MALADROIT BEAR

THE PRECIPITATE COCK AND THE UNAPPRECIATED PEARL

THE ABBREVIATED FOX AND HIS SCEPTICAL COMRADES

THE HOSPITABLE CALEDONIAN AND THE THANKLESS VIPER

THE IMPETUOUS BREEZE AND THE DIPLOMATIC SUN




ILLUSTRATIONS

"THE FOX RETREATED OUT OF RANGE"

"HE STROVE TO GROW ROTUNDER"

"AN ACORN FELL ABRUPTLY"

"SAID SHE, 'GET UP, YOU BRUTE YOU!'"

"'_J'ADMIRE_,' SAID HE, '_TON BEAU PLUMAGE'_"

"AND SO A WEIGHTY ROCK SHE AIMED"







         THE AMBITIOUS FOX

               AND

      THE UNAPPROACHABLE GRAPES

  A farmer built around his crop
    A wall, and crowned his labors
  By placing glass upon the top
    To lacerate his neighbors,
      Provided they at any time
      Should feel disposed the wall to climb.

  He also drove some iron pegs
    Securely in the coping,
  To tear the bare, defenceless legs
    Of brats who, upward groping,
      Might steal, despite the risk of fall,
      The grapes that grew upon the wall.

  One day a fox, on thieving bent,
    A crafty and an old one,
  Most shrewdly tracked the pungent scent
    That eloquently told one
      That grapes were ripe and grapes were good
      And likewise in the neighborhood.

  He threw some stones of divers shapes
    The luscious fruit to jar off:
  It made him ill to see the grapes
    So near and yet so far off.
      His throws were strong, his aim was fine,
      But "Never touched me!" said the vine.

  The farmer shouted, "Drat the boys!"
  And, mounting on a ladder,
  He sought the cause of all the noise;
  No farmer could be madder,
    Which was not hard to understand
    Because the glass had cut his hand.

  His passion he could not restrain,
    But shouted out, "You're thievish!"
  The fox replied, with fine disdain,
    "Come, country, don't be peevish."
      (Now "country" is an epithet
      One can't forgive, nor yet forget.)

  The farmer rudely answered back
    With compliments unvarnished,
  And downward hurled the _bric-a-brac_
    With which the wall was garnished,
      In view of which demeanor strange,
      The fox retreated out of range.

  "I will not try the grapes to-day,"
    He said. "My appetite is
  Fastidious, and, anyway,
    I fear appendicitis."
      (The fox was one of the _elite_
      Who call it _site_ instead of _seet_.)

  The moral is that if your host
    Throws glass around his entry
  You know it isn't done by most
    Who claim to be the gentry,
      While if he hits you in the head
      You may be sure he's underbred.





     THE PERSEVERING TORTOISE

               AND

       THE PRETENTIOUS HARE

  Once a turtle, finding plenty
    In seclusion to bewitch,
  Lived a _dolce far niente_
    Kind of life within a ditch;
  Rivers had no charm for him,
    As he told his wife and daughter,
  "Though my friends are in the swim,
    Mud is thicker far than water."

  One fine day, as was his habit,
    He was dozing in the sun,
  When a young and flippant rabbit
    Happened by the ditch to run:
  "Come and race me," he exclaimed,
    "Fat inhabitant of puddles.
  Sluggard! You should be ashamed.
    Such a life the brain befuddles."

  This, of course, was banter merely,
    But it stirred the torpid blood
  Of the turtle, and severely
    Forth he issued from the mud.
  "Done!" he cried. The race began,
    But the hare resumed his banter,
  Seeing how his rival ran
    In a most unlovely canter.

  Shouting, "Terrapin, you're bested!
    You'd be wiser, dear old chap,
  If you sat you down and rested
    When you reach the second lap."
  Quoth the turtle, "I refuse.
    As for you, with all your talking,
  Sit on any lap you choose.
    _I_ shall simply go on walking."

  Now this sporting proposition
    Was, upon its face, absurd;
  Yet