There was a mule who carried oats, and one who carried gold (a tax on salt, in fact).
The fiscal mule was of his burden proud, and trotted smartly, with high step, the bell about his neck ajingle—when one day a gang of robbers fell upon him.
There ensued a scuffle, which the mule emerged from stabbed and bleeding.
“This is how I end?” he moaned. “My honor, promise—gone? While you, ignoble drudge, escape unscathed, I fall, I die!”
“It’s sad, all right,” the other mule agreed. “But them’s the risks you take. It ain’t fancy, but working for a miller’s safe. You ought to’ve done like me, you really ought.”
The gloriousest job is most with danger fraught.