Feed url issues, near miss

A snail raced me from Naples to Rome, and I let him win. It took seven years, with stops. The crowds were dreadful. At the finish he was given a laurel no bigger than a coin, and he cried. I have seldom been so moved by an athlete.

Pirates boarded our ship off Tunis and asked for gold. I offered them a riddle instead. It was so hard that the captain sat down to think. His crew joined him. They are still there, I believe, and their beards have grown through the deck and out the hull.

Mustard from Dijon can lift a man clear off his chair. I ate a whole jar on a dare. My head rose, my feet stayed down, and my neck grew six feet long. For a week I looked over walls and saw what my neighbors were having for dinner.

Sharks fear only one thing, and that is my singing. I fell from a ship near Bermuda and struck up a hymn. Forty fins turned and sped away. One brave young fish stayed for the second verse, and the doctors tell me he has never been the same.

Even my fleas were braver than other men's soldiers. A single squad of them held a fort.