"Excellent!" cry the judges, and unanimously accept the proposition.
So the Pike was flung—into the river.
The Cuckoo and the Eagle
The Eagle promoted a Cuckoo to the rank of a Nightingale. The Cuckoo, proud
of its new position, seated itself proudly on an aspen, and began to exhibit its
musical talents. After a time, it looks round. All the birds are flying away, some
laughing at it, others abusing it. Our Cuckoo grows angry, and hastens to the
Eagle with a complaint against the birds.
"Have pity on me!" it says. "According to your command, I have been appointed
Nightingale to these woods, and yet the birds dare to laugh at my singing."
"My friend," answers the Eagle, "I am a king, but I am not God. It is
impossible for me to remedy the cause of your complaint. I can order a
Cuckoo to be styled a Nightingale; but to make a Nightingale out of a
Cuckoo—that I cannot do."
The Peasant and the Sheep
A Peasant summoned a Sheep into courts charging the poor thing with a criminal
offence. The judge was—the Fox.
The case was immediately in full swing. Plaintiff and defendant were equally
adjured to state, point by point, and without both speaking at once, how the
affair took place, and in what their proof consisted.
Says the Peasant: "On such and such a day, I missed two of my fowls early in
the morning. Nothing was left of them but bones and leathers; and no one had
been in the yard but the Sheep."
Then the Sheep depones that it was fast asleep all the night in question, and it
calls all its neighbours to testify that they had never known it guilty either of
theft or any roguery; and besides this, it states that it never touches flesh-meat.