"I mean to say," was the rejoinder, "that I wished to cross it by my
method, solely to avoid crossing it by yours."

_Fabula docet_ that while the end is everything, the means is
something.




XVIII.


An hippopotamus meeting an open alligator, said to him:

"My forked friend, you may as well collapse. You are not sufficiently
comprehensive to embrace me. I am myself no tyro at smiling, when in
the humour."

"I really had no expectation of taking you in," replied the other. "I
have a habit of extending my hospitality impartially to all, and about
seven feet wide."

"You remind me," said the hippopotamus, "of a certain zebra who was
not vicious at all; he merely kicked the breath out of everything that
passed behind him, but did not induce things to pass behind him."

"It is quite immaterial what I remind you of," was the reply.

The lesson conveyed by this fable is a very beautiful one.