“What manner of good would you do me, stranger? Should I eat you, I should be neither more nor less hungry. You are evidently a studious Sparrow. You have burned the midnight oil, and offered up every drop of your blood on the shrine of science or literature. Skin, bone, and feathers. Ugh! you would only trouble me in my empty stomach, and there study out at leisure the various odds and ends of my organisation. No, no! get up; give my mouth a wide berth; sit on my tail, if you like the fur.”
Concealing my dread of his hungry fangs, I perched lightly on the tail, where I was not unfrequently disturbed by the tremor of his emotions.
Fellow Sparrows, the tail of a beast of prey is the safest perch, and it affords a true index of the play of passion in the brute.
“What are you doing here?” I said, to renew the conversation.
“Well,” said he, “we are awaiting some visitors at yonder castle, and intend to devour them, horses, coachmen, and all.” Here the tail whisked so briskly that I had difficulty in keeping my feet.
“That would be an extraordinary proceeding. Men, to be sure, are { 51} our foes, and you, no doubt, perform a useful function in keeping down their numbers. As they are Russians, you won’t eat their heads,” said I.
“What a pity! That will be a loss to us, but that won’t be the only one.”
“Alas!” said the Wolf, “many of ours will fall in the attack, but it will be in our country’s cause. There are only six men, a few horses, and some provisions. Too few! too few! They won’t serve for a meal to the right wing of our army. Bird, believe me, we are nearly famished!”
He turned and showed his fangs so hungrily that I almost fainted with fright. “We have had nothing to eat.”
“No; not even a Tartar. Those rogues of Tartars scent us two miles off.”
“The young and strong among us are bound to fight on an empty stomach. She-wolves, cubs, and veterans must feed first.”
“That is a fine point in the character of your Republic.”
“Fine!” he said; “why, it is only fair. We know no distinction other than that of age and sex; all are equal.”
“Because we are all of us the same in the sight of God.”
“But, General,” said I—here the fellow pricked up his ears, and seemed immensely pleased with even the shadow of distinction carried in a name—“to-morrow it may be your turn to command.”