The pin-swin or spine-swine br (the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out, br echidna and echinoderm in distressed- br pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine, br the rhino with horned snout– br everything is battle-dressed. br br Pig-fur won’t do, I’ll wrap br myself in salamander-skin like Presbyter John. br A lizard in the midst of flames, a firebrand br that is life, asbestos-eyed asbestos-eared, with tattooed nap br and permanent pig on br the instep; he can withstand br br fire and won’t drown. In his br unconquerable country of unpompous gusto, br gold was so common none considered it; greed br and flattery were unknown. Though rubies large as tennis- br balls conjoined in streams so br that the mountain seemed to bleed, br br the inextinguishable br salamander styled himself but presbyter. His shield br was his humility. In Carpasian br linen coat, flanked by his household lion-cubs and sable br retinue, he revealed br a formula safer than br br an armorer’s: the power of relinquishing br what one would keep; that is freedom. Become dinosaur- br skulled, quilled or salamander-wooled, more ironshod br and javelin-dressed than a hedgehog battalion of steel, but be br dull. Don’t be envied or br armed with a measuring rod.