"
"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
mountainside--a warning to thy kind."
The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
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