The English Illustrated Magazine/The Benevolent Rattlesnake

THE BENEVOLENT RATTLESNAKE.
By PHIL ROBINSON.
"HAD a frog, I see?"
"How do you see I've had a frog?" said the rattlesnake snappishly.
"Because I can see the frog you've had," said I.
"Why, it's inside me!"
"Yes, but it's all in one place: right in the middle of you. And any one can see it's a frog. But never mind that. Do you like frogs?"
"Do you think I look as if I'd eat things I didn't like?"
"Well, I can't say. You look as if you'd eat anything you could."
"Now you're getting personal," said the crotalus in a dismal tone of voice; "you're getting nasty. That's just how everybody gets who looks at me, and you can't imagine how depressing it is. Why do they do it?"
"Well, your name is 'horridus.' I confess myself I don't think that's fair, any more than I think it's right to hold the wombat up to public ridicule by labelling him 'the hairy-nosed wombat.' People laugh at him because of his name. Just in the same way they think badly of you. You're 'horridus,' and the common people's English for that is 'horrid.'"
"HAD A FROG, I SEE?"
"But that's not me. That's an old label. The 'horridus' is dead: she choked herself with her old frock. Mean! She was so mean that she wouldn

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