Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/188



“At length, after many unsuccessful efforts to surmount the wall. Master Reynard turned away.

“‘I had never much of a fancy for grapes,’ said he, ‘and, moreover, these grapes are far from ripe.’”

He was several kinds of a humbug, was the fabulist’s fox, but not, among them, of that most unconscionable variety which puts down such remarks as the above in writing. The distinction is one, which, however reluctantly I say it, I cannot claim for myself. For the entire history of “Sans Souci,” as it appears in the foregoing pages, seems to me to be nothing more than an elaboration of Master Reynard’s casuistry.

There will have been, incidental to the