The goose appears in several adages, one rather severe one being, that "If all fools wore white we should look a flock of geese." One could readily acquiesce in this if the adage said "they"; it is the "we" that is so painful. It is held that the goose is a foolish bird,[175:B] but how much more foolish was he who, having a goose that laid him a golden egg each day, cut the bird open to get at once the whole store. "Much would have more, and so lost all." The man who cannot say "Bo! to a goose" is rightly regarded as a poor creature. A very sarcastic adage is that which satirises the man who, having gained great wealth by dubious means, endeavours to buy over Heaven and his own conscience by a little cheap almsgiving in the words--"He steals a goose and gives away the giblets to the poor." We must not overlook, either, the great charter of freedom and equality enshrined in "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." "To shoe the goose" is now quite obsolete as a saying, though it was at one time very popular as a suggestion to those people, fussy busybodies, who will keep meddling in other people's affairs. It was a task that would take them, at all events, some little time, give their energies something to work on, and was no more useless than many of their toils. In the "Parliament of Byrdes," written about 1650, we read that he "Who wyll smatter what euery man doos maye go helpe to shoo the goose." There is a useful word of warning in the following:--"A goose-quill may be more dangerous than a lion's claw" to one attacked by it. There is homely wisdom in the hint that "If you would have a hen lay you must bear with the cackling"; and, of course, the need or otherwise of teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs must not be forgotten. The Greeks phrased the idea as "Teaching a dolphin to swim," while the French say: "The goslings want to drive the geese to pasture." Two useful proverbs in this connection are that "There is reason in roasting eggs," a right and a wrong way for almost everything, and "Don't carry all your eggs in one basket." A crotchety, fanciful individual, regarded by most people as a little peculiar, has, in English proverbial phrase, "A bee in his bonnet," or "Is bitten by a maggot," while the French say, "He has a rat in his head," and the Dutchmen account for his eccentricities by crediting him with a mouse's nest in his brains. The Italians say: "Si prendono piu mosche col miele che coll' aceto"--"More flies are caught by honey than by vinegar." To arrive at any desired result, sweetness of manner will carry matters on much more efficaciously than the reverse. "Where there are industrious persons there is wealth," and "Where bees are there is honey." Steady industry must reap a reward. On the other hand, we find a proverb, "To poke one's hand into a hornet's nest," and receive the painful reward of indiscreet meddling thereby.