A caterpillar had crawled painfully to the top of a hop-pole, and not
finding anything there to interest him, began to think of descending.

"Now," soliloquized he, "if I only had a pair of wings, I should be
able to manage it very nicely."

So saying, he turned himself about to go down, but the heat of his
previous exertion, and that of the sun, had by this time matured him
into a butterfly.

"Just my luck!" he growled, "I never wish for anything without getting
it. I did not expect this when I came out this morning, and have
nothing prepared. But I suppose I shall have to stand it."

So he spread his pinions and made for the first open flower he saw.
But a spider happened to be spending the summer in that vegetable, and
it was not long before Mr. Butterfly was wishing himself back atop of
that pole, a simple caterpillar.

He had at last the pleasure of being denied a desire.

_Hæc fabula docet_ that it is not a good plan to call at houses
without first ascertaining who is at home there.




IX.