

The Rat and the Elephant.A Rat, traveling on the highway, met a huge elephant, bearing his royalmaster and his suite, and also his favorite cat and dog, and parrot andmonkey. The great beast and his attendants were followed by an admiringcrowd, taking up all of the road. "What fools you are," said the Rat tothe people, "to make such a hubbub over an elephant. Is it his greatbulk that you so much admire? It can only frighten little boys andgirls, and I can do that as well. I am a beast; as well as he, and haveas many legs and ears and eyes. He has no right to take up all thehighway, which belongs as much to me as to him." At this moment, the catspied the rat, and, jumping to the ground, soon convinced him that hewas not an elephant. Because we are like the great in one respect we must not think we arelike them in all. From Aesop's Fables |