Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/191

 Why could he not have said, 'Eat them first and educate them afterwards?' That would have been a much more reasonable remark."

The second monkey: "No doubt, no doubt. Else why are we called monkeys?"

The first monkey: "These people have no idea how to conduct a discussion, or what language to use. During the making of a speech, it is befitting to gibber, to leap from place to place, to screw up the face in an expressive manner, to nibble a banana from time to time. What they ought to do is to take some lessons in oratory from us."

The second monkey: "They might then have some hope of being monkeys and not mere tigers."

In the meanwhile some other monkeys took courage to emerge from their hiding-places. One of them remarked:

"In my opinion, the chief fault of the oratory consisted in this that the president, relying on his own unaided wits, made use of various expressions for which there is no precedent in