A CUCUMBER IN A BOTTLE

When I was a little boy,” remarked an old man, “somebody gave me a cucumber in a bottle. The neck of the bottle was small, and the cucumber so large it wasn’t possible for it to pass through, and I wondered how it got there. But out in the garden one day I came upon a bottle slipped over a little green sprout, and then I understood. The cucumber had grown in the bottle. And now I often see men with habits that I wonder any strong, sensible man could form, and then I think that likely they grew into them when they were young, and cannot slip out of them now. They are like the cucumber.”