voyages in a less susceptible element. So he essayed a sail upon the
placid bosom of a clay-bank. This kind of navigation did not meet his
expectations, however, and he returned with dogged despair to his
pond, resolved to make a final cruise and go out of commission. He was
delighted to find that the clay adhering to his hull so defiled the
water that it gave back no image of him. After that, whenever he left
port, he was careful to be well clayed along the water-line.

The lesson of this is that if all geese are alike, we can banish
unpleasant reflections by befouling ourselves. This is worth knowing.




LXXXII.


The belly and the members of the human body were in a riot. (This is
not the riot recorded by an inferior writer, but a more notable and
authentic one.) After exhausting the well-known arguments, they had
recourse to the appropriate threat, when the man to whom they
belonged thought it time for _him_ to be heard, in his capacity as a
unit.

"Deuce take you!" he roared. "Things have come to a pretty pass if a
fellow cannot walk out of a fine morning without alarming the town by
a disgraceful squabble between his component parts! I am reasonably
impartial, I hope, but man's devotion is due to his deity: I espouse
the cause of my belly."