6 FAVOURITE FABLES.

PABLEE VE
THE FOX WITHOUT A TAIL.

A Fox being caught in a steel trap by his tail, was glad
to compound for his escape with the loss of it; but on coming
abroad into the world, began to be so sensible of the dis-
grace such a defect would bring upon him, that he almost
wished he had died rather than left it behind him. However,
to make the best of a bad matter, he formed a project in his
head to call an assembly of the rest of the Foxes, and propose
it for their imitation as a fashion which would be very agree-
able and becoming. He did so, and made a long harangue
upon the unprofitableness of tails in general, and endeavoured
chiefly to show the awkwardness and inconvenience of a Fox’s
tailin particular; adding that it would be both more graceful
and more expeditious to be altogether without them, and
that, for his part, what he had only imagined and conjectured
before, he now found by experience ; for that he never enjoyed
himself so well, nor found himself so easy as he had done
since he cut off his tail. He said no more, but looked about
with a brisk air to see what proselytes he had gained; when
a sly old Fox in the company, who understood trap, answered