The chairman of the wolves had established a policy stipulating that each of them should accept a number of cut-backs in perquisites, bonuses, and salaries for the good of their troubled firm; so that they should not be driven by the hunger of retrenchment to tear at each other’s throat. 

       But one of the mules working under the management of the wolves came forward, and skaking his gray mane, addressed the chairman as follows:

       ”Out of the mind of the wolf has come a noble thought. It is wise to set a good example. It gives us mules a reason to put up with wage and benefit cuts, and even with layoffs. But how is it, Mr. Wolf, that you yourself laid up in your den the fat quarry you got hold of recently? Put it in the company piggy bank where it belongs.”

        This exposure shamed the wolf into annulling the belt-tightening policy for wolves in general, and into designing a just-in-case severance package for himself in particular. It was the most beautiful and sublime golden parachute ever engineered by beast or man.

                                                     ***

   This plain distinction, Sir, no doubt secures,

    ‘Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.                  

  — John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

  Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature

 as not to know that a man maybe very sincere

in good principles without having good practice?

  — Samuel Johnson