THE DOG AND THE CROCODILE
THE story goes that when Dogs drink from the River Nile, they keep on running while they drink, so that the Crocodiles cannot catch them. Accordingly, when a certain Dog began to drink as he ran, a Crocodile said to him:
"Don't be afraid,—come on in, and lap the water up at your leisure."
"Nothing I should like better," replied the Dog, "if I did not know just how hungrily you are eyeing me."
Those who give bad advice to cautious men waste their time and make themselves ridiculous.
(Phædrus, Fables, Book I, No. 25.)
THE FROGS AND THE FIGHTING BULLS
A FROG, sitting at the edge of a swamp, was watching a battle between two Bulls in an adjoining field. "Alas! what deadly danger threatens us," he said. Another Frog, overhearing him, asked what he meant, when the Bulls were merely fighting to decide which should lead the herd, and the cattle passed their lives quite apart from the home of the Frogs. "It is true," rejoined the first Frog, "that they are a different race and live apart from us. But whichever Bull is beaten and driven from his leadership in the woods will come to find some secret hiding place; and I fear that many of us will be trampled to pieces under his hard hoofs. That is why I say that their battle means death and destruction to us."
When the mighty quarrel, the humble pay the cost.
(Phædrus, Fables, Vol. I, No. 30.)
