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Short Stories
 

      The Buffoon and the Countryman


Once at a country fair there was a Buffoon who made all the people laugh by removing the voice of various animals.

 He finished off by squeaking so like a pig that the audience thought that he had a porker hidden about him.

But a Countryman who stood by said: "Call that a pig's squeak! Nothing like it. You give me till tomorrow and I will show you what it's like."

The audience laughed, but next day, sure enough, the Countryman appeared on the stage, and putting his head down squealed so hideously that the audience hissed and threw stones at him to make him stop.

 "You fools!" he cried, "see what you have been hissing," and held up a little pig whose ear he had been pinching to make him utter the squeals.

Moral: Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing.