Chapter V

“What a bore it is to be superannuated!” soliloquized the Wolf. “I should get on famously, but for these unfurnished jaws of mine;” and he gnashed his gums together with as much apparent fervour as if he had got a mouthful of collops between them. “However, I must cut my coat according to my cloth. ‘’Tis not in mortals to command success.’” With which quotation from an English poet, Sir Isegrim made a halt before the cottage of a fifth shepherd.

“Good morrow, Corydon,” was his courteous greeting.

The accosted party cast his eyes upon Isegrim, but made no reply.

“Do you know me, Shepherd?” asked the Wolf.

“Perhaps not you, as an individual,” said the Shepherd, “but at least I know the like of you.”

“I should think not, though,” suggested Isegrim. “I should think you cannot. I should think you never saw the like of _me_, Corydon.”

“Indeed!” cried Corydon, opening his eyes; “and why not, pray?”

“Because, Corydon,” answered Isegrim, “I am a singular sort of wolf altogether--marvellous, unique, like to myself alone. I am one of those rare specimens of brute intellectuality that visit the earth once perhaps in three thousand years. My sensibilities, physical and moral, are of a most exquisite order. To give you an illustration--I never could bear to kill a sheep; the sight of the blood would be too much for my nerves; and hence, if I ever partake of animal food, it can only be where life has been for some time extinct in the natural way. I wait until a sheep expires at a venerable old age, and then I cook him in a civilized manner. But why do I mention all this to you? I’ll tell you frankly, my admirable friend. My refined susceptibilities have totally disqualified me for living in the forest, and I want a home under your hospitable roof. I know that after what I have said you cannot refuse me one, for even you yourself eat dead sheep; and I protest most solemnly that I will dine at your table.”

“And I protest most solemnly that you shall do no such thing,” returned the Shepherd. “You eat dead sheep, do you? Let me tell you that a wolf whose appetite is partial to dead sheep, may be now and then persuaded by hunger to mistake sick sheep for dead, and healthy sheep for sick. Trot off with your susceptibilities elsewhere, if you please. There’s a hatchet in the next room.”