Fortune and the Fabulist


  A WRITER of Fables was passing through a lonely forest when he met 
a Fortune.  Greatly alarmed, he tried to climb a tree, but the 
Fortune pulled him down and bestowed itself upon him with cruel 
persistence.

  "Why did you try to run away?" said the Fortune, when his struggles 
had ceased and his screams were stilled.  "Why do you glare at me 
so inhospitably?"

  "I don't know what you are," replied the Writer of Fables, deeply 
disturbed.

  "I am wealth; I am respectability," the Fortune explained; "I am 
elegant houses, a yacht, and a clean shirt every day.  I am 
leisure, I am travel, wine, a shiny hat, and an unshiny coat.  I am 
enough to eat."

  "All right," said the Writer of Fables, in a whisper; "but for 
goodness' sake speak lower."

  "Why so?" the Fortune asked, in surprise.

  "So as not to wake me," replied the Writer of Fables, a holy calm 
brooding upon his beautiful face.