THE IMAGE-SELLER
A CERTAIN man made a wooden Image of Mercury, and exposed it for sale in the market. As no one offered to buy it, however, he thought he would try to attract a purchaser by proclaiming the virtues of the Image. So he cried up and down the market, “A god for sale! a god for sale! One who’ll bring you luck and keep you lucky!” Presently one of the bystanders stopped him and said, “If your god is all you make him out to be, how is it you don’t keep him and make the most of him yourself?” “I’ll tell you why,” replied he; “he brings gain, it is true, but he takes his time about it; whereas I want money at once.”
THE EAGLE AND THE ARROW
AN Eagle sat perched on a lofty rock, keeping a sharp look-out for prey. A huntsman, concealed in a cleft of the mountain and on the watch for game, spied him there and shot an Arrow at him. The shaft struck him full in the breast and pierced him through and through. As he lay in the agonies of death, he turned his eyes upon the Arrow. “Ah! cruel fate!” he cried, “that I should perish thus: but oh! fate more cruel still, that the Arrow which kills me should be winged with an Eagle’s feathers!”
