No Room

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  “Very sorry, sir,” again repeated the landlord: “but we really haven’t got a bed vacant in the whole house. In fact, we are putting two, and even three gentlemen in one bed, as it is.”  This staggered us for a bit. But Harris, who is an old traveller, rose to the occasion, and, laughing cheerily, said: “Oh, well, we can’t help it. We must rough it. You must give us a shake-down in the billiard-room.”  “Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table already, and two in the coffee-room. Can’t possibly take you in to-night.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 12 (1889) Artwork by Grok

Four Oxen and A Lion

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A LION used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.

 “UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.”  


—Æsop (Sixth century B.C.) in The Harvard Classics 

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