So he sat down to think it over. He considered the question in all its aspects, until he grew quite thin; turned it over and over in his mind until he was too weak to sit up; meditated upon it with a constantly decreasing pulse, a rapidly failing respiration. But he could not make up his mind, and finally expired without having come to a decision. It appears to me he might almost as well have chosen starvation, at a venture. CXVII. A sword-fish having penetrated seven or eight feet into the bottom of a ship, under the impression that he was quarrelling with a whale, was unable to draw out of the fight. The sailors annoyed him a good deal, by pounding with handspikes upon that portion of his horn inside; but he bore it as bravely as he could, putting the best possible face upon the matter, until he saw a shark swimming by, of whom he inquired the probable destination of the ship. "Italy, I think," said the other, grinning. "I have private reasons for believing her cargo consists mainly of consumptives." "Ah!" exclaimed the captive; "Italy, delightful clime of the cerulean orange--the rosy olive! Land of the night-blooming Jesuit, and the fragrant _laszarone_! It would be heavenly to run down gondolas in the streets of Venice! I _must_ go to Italy." "Indeed you must," said the shark, darting suddenly aft, where he had caught the gleam of shotted canvas through the blue waters. But it was fated to be otherwise: some days afterwards the ship and fish passed over a sunken rock which almost grazed the keel. Then the two parted company, with mutual expressions of tender regard, and a report which could be traced by those on board to no trustworthy source. The foregoing fable shows that a man of good behaviour need not care for money, and _vice versâ_. CXVIII. A facetious old cat seeing her kitten sleeping in a bath tub, went down into the cellar and turned on the hot water. (For the convenience of the bathers the bath was arranged in that way; you had to undress, and then go down to the cellar to let on the wet.) No sooner did the kitten remark the unfamiliar sensation, than he departed thence with a willingness quite creditable in one who was not a professional acrobat, and met his mother on the kitchen stairs. "Aha! my steaming hearty!" cried the elder grimalkin; "I coveted you when I saw the cook put you in the dinner-pot. If I have a weakness, it is hare--hare nicely dressed, and partially boiled." Whereupon she made a banquet of her suffering offspring.[A] Adversity works a stupendous change in tender youth; many a young man is never recognized by his parents after having been in hot water. [Footnote A: Here should have followed the appropriate and obvious classical allusion. It is known our fabulist was classically educated. Why, then, this disgraceful omission?--TRANSLATOR.] CXIX.