The Horse and His Rider
A Horse
Soldier took the utmost
pains with his charger. As long as the war lasted, he looked upon him
as
his fellow-helper in all emergencies and fed him carefully with hay and
corn.
But when
the war was over,
he only allowed him chaff to eat and made him carry heavy loads of
wood,
subjecting him to much slavish drudgery and ill-treatment.
War was
again proclaimed,
however, and when the trumpet summoned him to his standard, the Soldier
put on his charger its military trappings, and mounted, being clad in
his
heavy coat of mail.
The Horse
fell down straightway
under the weight, no longer equal to the burden, and said to his master:
"You must now
go to the
war on foot, for you have transformed me from a Horse into an Ass; and
how can you expect that I can again turn in a moment from an Ass to a
Horse?'
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