Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

A merchant of Cairo gave a grand feast.  In the midst of the revelry, the great doors of the dining-hall were pushed open from the outside, and the guests were surprised and grieved by the advent of a crocodile of a tun’s girth, and as long as the moral law.

“Thought I ’d look in,” said he, simply, but not without a certain grave dignity.

“But,” cried the host, from the top of the table, “I did not invite any saurians.”

“No—­I know yer didn’t; it’s the old thing, it is:  never no wacancies for saurians—­saurians should orter keep theirselves to theirselves—­no saurians need apply.  I got it all by ’eart, I tell yer.  But don’t give yerself no distress; I didn’t come to beg; thank ’eaven I ain’t drove to that yet—­leastwise I ain’t done it.  But I thought as ’ow yer’d need a dish to throw slops and broken wittles in it; which I fetched along this ’ere.”

And the willing creature lifted off the cover by erecting the upper half of his head till the snout of him smote the ceiling.

Open servitude is better than covert begging.