like a dream. "Love's Labour Lost."

Joab was a beef, who was tired of being courted for his clean,
smooth skin. So he backed through a narrow gateway six or eight
times, which made his hair stand the wrong way. He then went and
rubbed his fat sides against a charred log. This made him look
untidy. You never looked worse in your life than Joab did.

"Now," said he, "I shall be loved for myself alone. I will change my
name, and hie me to pastures new, and all the affection that is then
lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested."

So he strayed off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis'
ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a
scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame
of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally
paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury
Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust.
His protestations of affection were met by creakings of contempt,
and as he turned sadly away he was rewarded by a sound spank from
one of her fans. Like a gentlemanly beef he did not deign to avenge
the insult by overturning Lucille Ashtonbury; and it is well for him
that he did not, for old Abner stood by with a pitchfork and a
trinity of dogs.

Disgusted with the selfish heartlessness of society, Joab shambled
off and was passing the scratching-post without noticing her. (Her
name was Arabella Cliftonbury Howard.) Suddenly she kicked away a
multitude of pigs who were at her feet, and called to the rolling
beef of uncanny exterior: