Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

An ant laden with a grain of corn, which he had acquired with infinite toil, was breasting a current of his fellows, each of whom, as is their etiquette, insisted upon stopping him, feeling him all over, and shaking hands.  It occurred to him that an excess of ceremony is an abuse of courtesy.  So he laid down his burden, sat upon it, folded all his legs tight to his body, and smiled a smile of great grimness.

“Hullo! what’s the matter with you?” exclaimed the first insect whose overtures were declined.

“Sick of the hollow conventionalities of a rotten civilization,” was the rasping reply.  “Relapsed into the honest simplicity of primitive observances.  Go to grass!”

“Ah! then we must trouble you for that corn.  In a condition of primitive simplicity there are no rights of property, you know.  These are ‘hollow conventionalities.’”

A light dawned upon the intellect of that pismire.  He shook the reefs out of his legs; he scratched the reverse of his ear; he grappled that cereal, and trotted away like a giant refreshed.  It was observed that he submitted with a wealth of patience to manipulation by his friends and neighbours, and went some distance out of his way to shake hands with strangers on competing lines of traffic.