Page:Three hundred Aesop's fables (Townshend).djvu/192

186 and imitated the squeaking of a little pig so admirably with his voice that the audience declared that he had a porker under his cloak, and demanded that it should be shaken out. When that was done, and yet nothing was found, they cheered the actor, and loaded him with the loudest applause. A Countryman in the crowd, observing all that had passed, said, "So help me, Hercules, he shall not beat me at that trick!" and at once proclaimed that he would do the same thing on the next day, though in a much more natural way. On the morrow a still larger crowd assembled in the theatre; but now partiality for their favourite actor very generally prevailed, and the audience came rather to ridicule the Countryman than to see the spectacle. Both of the performers, however, appeared on the stage. The Buffoon grunted and squeaked away first, and obtained, as on the preceding day, the applause and cheers of the spectators. Next the Countryman commenced, and pretending that he concealed a little pig beneath his clothes (which in truth he did, but not suspected of the audience), contrived to lay hold of and to pull his ear, when he began to squeak, and to express in his pain the actual cry of the pig. The crowd, how ever, cried out with one consent that the Buffoon had given a far more exact imitation, and clamoured for the Countryman to be kicked out of the theatre. On this the rustic produced the little pig from his cloak, and showed by the most positive proof the greatness of their mistake. "Look here," he said, "this shows what sort of judges you are."