14 
BY THE WAYSIDE. 
During this time, the Flea, quite calm, kept it¬ 
self hid in the King’s night-cap. 
The guards were doubled; laws and decrees 
were made; ordinances were published against 
all fleas; there were processions and public 
prayers to ask of Heaven the extermination of 
the Flea, and sound sleep for the King. It 
was all of no avail. The wretched King could 
not lie down, even on the grass, without being 
attacked by his obstinate enemy, the Good 
Flea, who did not let him sleep a single 
minute. 
“Bite! Bite!” 
It would take too long to tell the many hard 
knocks the King gave himself in trying to 
crush the Flea; he was covered with bruises and 
contusions. As he could not sleep, he wan¬ 
dered about like an uneasy spirit. He grew 
thinner. He would certainly have died, if, at last, 
he had not made up his mind to obey the Good 
Flea. 
“I surrender,” he said at last, when it began 
again to bite him. “I ask for quarter. I will 
do what you wish.” 
“So much the better. On this condition 
only shall you sleep,” replied the Flea. 
“Thank you. What must I do?” 
“Make your people happy!” 
“I have never learned how. I do not know 
how.” 
“Nothing more easy; you have only to go 
away.” 
“Taking my treasures with me?” 
“Without taking anything!” 
“But I shall die if I have no money!” said 
the King. 
“Well, what of it? I don’t care!” replied 
the Flea. 
But the Flea was not hard-hearted, and it 
let the King fill his pockets with money before 
he went away. And the people were able to 
be very happy by setting up a republic. 
From St. Nicholas. 
Speaking of Fleas. 
Speaking of fleas, this story, which Victor 
Hugo used to tell to his grandchildren, re¬ 
minds us of what wonderful creatures they are. 
The flea has, relatively to his size, such enor¬ 
mous mental and physical powers, that there 
is no knowing what he might accomplish if he 
were not hampered by being such an atom of 
a thing. As Tom Sawyer says: “The fastest 
man can’t run more than about ten miles in 
an hour—not much over ten thousand times 
his own length. But all the books says any 
common, ordinary, third-class flea can jump 
a hundred and fifty times his own length; yes, 
and he can make five jumps a second too,— 
seven hundred and fifty times his own length, 
in one little second—for he don’t fool away 
any time stopping and starting—he does them 
both at the same time; you’ll see, if you try 
to put your finger on him. Now that’s a 
common, ordinary, third-class flea’s gait; but 
you take an Eyetalian first- class, that’s been 
the pet of the nobility all his life, and hasn’t 
ever knowed what want or sickness or ex¬ 
posure was, and he can jump more than three 
hundred times his own length, and keep it 
up all day, five such jumps every second, which 
is fifteen hundred times his own length. Well, 
suppose a man could go fifteen hundred times 
his own length in a second—say a mile and a 
half. It’s ninety miles a minute; it’s consider¬ 
able more than five thousand miles an hour. 
Where’s your man now? —yes, and your bird, 
and your railroad, and your balloon? Laws, 
they don’t amount to shucks ’longside of a 
flea. A flea is just a comet biled down small. 
* * * They’ve got ever so much more sense, 
and brains, and brightness, in proportion to 
their size, than any other cretur in the world. 
A person can learn them ’most anything; and 
they learn it quicker than any other cretur, 
too. They’ve been learnt to haul little car¬ 
riages in harness, and go this way and that 
way and t’other way according to their orders; 
yes, and to march and drill like soldiers, doing 
it as exact, according to orders, as soldiers does 
it. They’ve been learnt to do all sorts of hard 
and troublesome things. S pose you could cul¬ 
tivate a flea up to the size of a man, and keep 
his natural smartness a-growing and a-growing 
right along up, bigger and bigger, and keener 
and keener, in the same proportion—wliere’d 
the human race be, do you reckon? That flea 
would be President of the United States, and 
you couldn’t anymore prevent it than you 
can prevent lightning.” 
This sounds almost alarming but it is only 
fair to add that, according to the trainer of the 
famous Flea Circus, (the whole of which could 
be carried about in a cherry stone) all fleas are 
not equally clever. Some are very apt scholars 
while others cannot learn, and great numbers 
are experimented with before a troupe is ac¬ 
cepted, 
