Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/800

694 sides and petted his neck and rubbed his nose and slapped his ribs and fed him sugar and spoke kind words to him.

"Nice horsie, good horsie, nice horsie. Get up like a nice fellow. Come, little pony, nice little pony."

It almost helped, he was just about to move when the driver forgot himself and shouted:

"You low-down beast—get up!"

That ended it. Down went the spirits of the horse and again all was lost; even the four lumps of sugar.

We decided finally that it was of no use and the only weapon we had left to use was—starvation. We would starve the beast until he stood upon his legs, realizing also that the more we starved him, the less would he be able to stand on his legs.

The driver of a motor car, thinking our circle a political discussion, blew his horn as he headed straight for the crowd. We stepped aside, leaving the horse in view. The car with its big brass lamps went very near to the stubborn beast before slowing down. This the horse did not at all like, se he rapidly got up.

"Hurry," we shouted as we quickly ran the cart up to the beast and strapped the two together.

"Keep the auto here or he'll sit down again," some one shouted.

But the driver was already on the box and off went the horse and wagon at a good pace.

The next morning the following variation appeared in a leading newspaper of Petrograd, written by one of the well known satirists. It was entitled: A Fable!

In a Socialistic Commune that believed neither in violence nor force, a man sat down in the middle of the street and refused to get up. The traffic was stopped.

Nothing could induce him to move. The four tram cars, all that the town possessed, stood idle. His best friend, the blacksmith, was called and asked to lend his aid. Approaching the obstacle, he asked:

"Ivan, how long have we been friends?"

The seated man refused to reply.

"It's eleven years, is it not, Ivan?"

"Well, what of it?" asked Ivan.

"Well, if that is true, then you ought to have more sense. If you