Animals -- Fiction; Children's stories, English; Short stories
THE Camel's hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the hump we get
From having too little to do.
Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven't enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the hump--
Cameelious hump--
The hump that is black and blue!
We climb out of bed with a frouzly head
And a snarly-yarly voice.
We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
At our bath and our boots and our toys;
And there ought to be a corner for me
(And I know there is one for you)
When we get the hump--
Cameelious hump--
The hump that is black and blue!
The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And dig till you gently perspire;
And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
And the Djinn of the Garden too,
Have lifted the hump--
The horrible hump--
The hump that is black and blue!
I get it as well as you-oo-oo--
If I haven't enough to do-oo-oo--
We all get hump--
Cameelious hump--
Kiddies and grown-ups too!
[Illustration: How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin]
HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKIN
ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red
Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were
reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. And the Parsee lived by the
Red Sea with nothing but his hat and his knife and a cooking-stove of
the kind that you must particularly never touch. And one day he took
flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made
himself one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick. It was
indeed a Superior Comestible (_that's_ magic), and he put it on the
stove because _he_ was allowed to cook on that stove, and he baked it
and he baked it till it was all done brown and smelt most sentimental.
But just as he was going to eat it there came down to the beach from the
Altogether Uninhabited Interior one Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose,
two piggy eyes, and few manners. In those days the Rhinoceros's skin
fitted him quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere. He looked
exactly like a Noah's Ark Rhinoceros, but of course much bigger. All the
same, he had no manners then, and he has no manners now, and he never
will have any manners. He said, 'How!' and the Parsee left that cake and
climbed to the top of a palm tree with nothing on but his hat, from
which the rays of the sun were always reflected in more-than-oriental
splendour. And the Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose, and the
cake rolled on the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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