“Nay, there be but twelve of you front-teeth, and there be twenty of us grinders.  We are the strongest, and a good deal nearest the muscles and the joint, but we cannot spare you.  We have put up with your black stains, your jumping aches, and your snappish looks, and now we are not going to let you go, under the pretence that you are to be scrubbed white, if you stay.  You don’t work half so hard as we do, but you can bite the food well enough, which we can grind so much better than you.  We belong to each other.  You must stay.”

Thereupon the front-teeth, first the canines or dog-teeth, next the incisors or cutting-teeth, proceeded to declare themselves out of their sockets, and no longer belonging to the jaws of Uncle Samuel.

Then Uncle Samuel arose in his wrath and shut his jaws tightly together, and swore that he would keep them shut till those aching and discolored teeth of his went to pieces in their sockets, if need were, rather than have them drawn, standing, as some of them did, at the very opening of his throat and stomach.

And now, if you will please to observe, all those teeth are beginning to ache worse than ever, and to decay very fast, so that it will take a great deal of gold to stop the holes that are forming in them.  But the great white grinders are as sound as ever, and will remain so until Uncle Samuel thinks the time has come for opening his mouth.  In the mean time they keep on grinding in a quiet way, though the others have had to stop biting for a long time.  When Uncle Samuel opens his mouth, they will be as ready for work as ever; but those poor discolored teeth will be tender for a great while, and never be so strong as they were before they foolishly declared themselves out of their sockets.

* * * * *

The foregoing fable is respectfully dedicated to the Southern Plebs, who, under the lead of their “Patrician” masters, have “seceded,” like their predecessors in the days of Menenius Agrippa.