Languages & literature > Aurus clavus, or, The adventures of a gold trinket, supposed to have been written by itself

110.
up at one gnap. Had he not been successful in
ingulphing me at the first attempt, there
would have been little fear of him making a
second ; for the first had, no doubt, taught him
that I was indeed substantial gear, though my qua¬
lities were not of a very nutritive description
for such a laxative machine as the stomach.
But as I conjectured, attracted by my brilliant
stone, jmd perhaps being somewhat rare in his
locality, he had fancied I was something which
would procure him a little animal gratification,
and he accordingly snapt me up at the first
effort, Like Jonah of old, I was doomed to pine
my golden existence for some time in the heart
of a fish; but he being caught soon after in
the net-work of human cunning, was bought
by a gentleman’s servant, who, while in the act
of preparing him for dinner, observed me to her
great surprise peeping out from the interior of
this little world, which so lately possessed life
and animation, and exclaimed, “ Losh me, this
fish has golden spawning !” On getting a full
view of me, and examining with much interest
the beautiful stone in my head, she thought
of appropriating me quietly to herself; but her
curiosity at length overcoming her avarice, she