The Devil's Demise
Illustration★★★★A newspaper in Texas reported that a taxidermist was bitten by a frozen rattlesnake. Robert Herndon buys poisonous rattlers, freezes them to death, and markets the preserved remains. He usually tapes their mouth before he starts cutting into them, but he apparently skipped the tape that time. So, again the warning proved true: “Never assume a poisonous snake is dead.”
The point
A taxidermist handling frozen rattlesnakes was bitten by one he thought was dead, illustrating that one should never assume a poisonous threat is neutralized.
Audience
Adults
Tone
Cautionary · Humorous
To tell aloud
under a minute · 71 words