_Moral._--A virtuous action is not always its only reward. A snake in the grass is worth two in the boot.
An Ostrich and a Hen chanced to occupy adjacent apartments, and the former complained loudly that her rest was disturbed by the cackling of her humble neighbour. "Why is it," she finally asked the Hen, "that you make such an intolerable noise?" The Hen replied, "Because I have laid an egg." "Oh no," said the Ostrich, with a superior smile, "it is because you are a Hen and don't know any better."
_Moral._--The moral of the foregoing is not very clear, but it contains some reference to the Agitation for Female Suffrage.
Signora Mirandolina Rocca, who was the landlady of the house where the Club were lodging, was a widow, of about forty years of age, still fresh and blooming, with a merry dark eye, and much animation of features. Sitting usually in the small room which they passed on the way to their apartments, they had to stop to get their keys, or to leave them when they went out, and Buttons and Dick frequently stopped to have a little conversation. The rest, not being able to speak Italian, contented themselves with smiles; the Senator particularly, who gave the most beaming of smiles both on going and on returning. Sometimes he even tried to talk to her in his usual adaptation of broken English, spoken in loud tones to the benighted but fascinating foreigner. Her attention to Dick during his sickness increased the Senator's admiration, and he thought her one of the best, one of the most kind-hearted and sympathetic of beings.
One day, toward the close of their stay in Rome, the Senator was in a fix. He had not had any washing done since he came to the city. He had run through all his clean linen, and came to a dead stand. Before leaving for another place it was absolutely necessary to attend to this. But how? Buttons was off with the Spaniards; Dick had gone out on a drive. No one could help him, so he tried it himself. In fact, he had never lost confidence in his powers of making himself understood. It was still a fixed conviction of his that in cases of necessity any intelligent man could make his wants known to intelligent foreigners. If not, there is stupidity somewhere. Had he not done so in Paris and in other places?