The third shelf of specimens

Spurs rang out across Moldavia when my hussars came to town. Each man was six feet tall, and each horse could do long division. We charged the enemy in perfect order, and then we stopped to correct their math. Their officers wept. They paid a fine and went home.

Owls are wise only because I tutored them. For a time I ran a night school in a Bavarian oak. Geometry went well. History gave them trouble. My best pupil could recite Latin with its head turned fully backward, and it later served three dukes as a private adviser.

My uncle grew a turnip so large it had its own weather. Rain fell on the north side. Sheep grazed on the leaves and got lost. I dug for a week and struck a Roman road. We boiled it in a lake, and all of Saxony had supper that night.

Wigs were in fashion at Versailles, and mine was the tallest. Swallows nested near the top. A small choir practiced in the curls. One evening it caught on a chandelier, and I hung there all through the ball. The Queen said it was the best dance she had seen.

Frogs near Riga held a loud meeting under my window every June. I attended one and asked for the floor. My speech on silence ran six hours. The frogs elected me mayor and then fell asleep. That pond has been quiet since, apart from the odd croak when I am up for a vote.

Mirrors have always been kind to me. One in Paris fell in love and refused to show anybody else. Ladies stood before it and saw only my face, and this led to some trouble. I had it moved to my bedroom, and we have been happy ever since.

Flames froze on my candles during that bitter year in Courland. I snapped them off like carrots and sold them by the dozen. Buyers thawed them on the stove at home. Many a dark cottage was lit that way, and I bought a new sled with the money.

A hurricane off Jamaica tried to take my hat. I held on to the brim. The storm pulled, I pulled, and we spun around the island for three days. At last the wind gave up and begged for terms. We signed a treaty, and it has gone around my hats ever since.

Venice sat on dry land until I came to town. The streets were dusty, and the mules were rude. I pulled one plug in a cellar near the Rialto. Water came up at once. People liked it. They bought small boats, sang loudly, and forgot to ask who had done it.

Holes in Swiss cheese are my doing. Long ago, each wheel came solid as a brick. I took my musket to a dairy in Bern and fired at them for sport. The farmer wept, until the buyers came. They paid double for the holes, and I have billed the canton ever since.

Starving out a fortress takes patience, which I have in great amounts. At Ismail we sat for a year. I got bored and began to bake. The smell of bread went over the wall. By evening the gates flew open, and they all stood in a line with butter.

Crocodiles on the Nile have poor teeth, and I.