Fantastic Fables

by Ambrose Bierce


Previous Chapter Next Chapter

The Policeman and the Citizen


A POLICEMAN, finding a man that had fallen in a fit, said, "This man is drunk," and began beating him on the head with his club. A passing Citizen said:

"Why do you murder a man that is already harmless?"

Thereupon the Policeman left the man in a fit and attacked the Citizen, who, after receiving several severe contusions, ran away.

"Alas," said the Policeman, "why did I not attack the sober one before exhausting myself upon the other?"

Thenceforward he pursued that plan, and by zeal and diligence rose to be Chief, and sobriety is unknown in the region subject to his sway.

Return to the Fantastic Fables Summary Return to the Ambrose Bierce Library

Anton Chekhov
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Susan Glaspell
Mark Twain
Edgar Allan Poe
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Herman Melville
Stephen Leacock
Kate Chopin
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson