066. THE FOX WITHOUT A TAIL. A fox being caught in a steel trap by his tail was to compound for his escape with the loss of it; but upon coming abroad into the world began to be so sensible of the disgrace such a defect would bring upon him that he almost wished he had died rather than left it behind him.
However, to make the best of a bad matter he formed a project in his head to call an assembly of the rest of the foxes and propose it for their imitation as a fashion which would be very agreeable and becoming. He did so and made a long harangue upon the unprofitableness of tails in general and endeavoured chiefly to show the awkwardness and inconvenience of a fox's tail in particular, adding that it would be both more graceful and more expeditious to be altogether without them, and that for his part what he had only imagined and conjectured before, he now found by experience, for that he never enjoyed himself so well and found himself so easy as he had done since he cut off his tail.
He said no more but looked about him with a brisk air to see what proselytes he had gained, when a sly old thief in the company who understood trap answered him with a leer: "I believe you may have found a conveniency in parting with your tail, and when we are in the same circumstances perhaps we may do so too." [more info]
However, to make the best of a bad matter he formed a project in his head to call an assembly of the rest of the foxes and propose it for their imitation as a fashion which would be very agreeable and becoming. He did so and made a long harangue upon the unprofitableness of tails in general and endeavoured chiefly to show the awkwardness and inconvenience of a fox's tail in particular, adding that it would be both more graceful and more expeditious to be altogether without them, and that for his part what he had only imagined and conjectured before, he now found by experience, for that he never enjoyed himself so well and found himself so easy as he had done since he cut off his tail.
He said no more but looked about him with a brisk air to see what proselytes he had gained, when a sly old thief in the company who understood trap answered him with a leer: "I believe you may have found a conveniency in parting with your tail, and when we are in the same circumstances perhaps we may do so too." [more info]
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