The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
Children's literature
Not a hundred miles from the fairy Do-nothing's palace there lived a
most cruel monster called the giant Snap-'em-up, who looked, when he
stood up, like the tall steeple of a great church, raising his head so
high that he could peep over the loftiest mountains, and was obliged
to climb up a ladder to comb his own hair.
Every morning regularly this prodigiously great giant walked round the
world before breakfast for an appetite, after which he made tea in a
large lake, used the sea as a slop-basin, and boiled his kettle on
Mount Vesuvius. He lived in great style, and his dinners were most
magnificent, consisting very often of an elephant roasted whole,
ostrich patties, a tiger smothered in onions, stewed lions, and whale
soup; but for a side-dish his greatest favourite consisted of little
boys, as fat as possible, fried in crumbs of bread, with plenty of
pepper and salt.
No children were so well fed or in such good condition for eating as
those in the fairy Do-nothing's garden, who was a very particular
friend of the giant Snap-'em-up, and who sometimes laughingly said
she would give him a license, and call her own garden his "preserve,"
because she always allowed him to help himself, whenever he pleased,
to as many of her visitors as he chose, without taking the trouble
even to count them; and in return for such extreme civility, the giant
very frequently invited her to dinner.
Snap-'em-up's favourite sport was to see how many brace of little boys
he could bag in a morning; so, in passing along the streets, he peeped
into all the drawing-rooms, without having occasion to get upon
tiptoe, and picked up every young gentleman who was idly looking out
of the windows, and even a few occasionally who were playing truant
from school; but busy children seemed always somehow quite out of his
reach.
One day, when Master No-book felt even more lazy, more idle, and more
miserable than ever, he lay beside a perfect mountain of toys and
cakes, wondering what to wish for next, and hating the very sight of
everything and everybody. At last he gave so loud a yawn of weariness
and disgust that his jaw very nearly fell out of joint, and then he
sighed so deeply that the giant Snap-'em-up heard the sound as he
passed along the road after breakfast, and instantly stepped into the
garden, with his glass at his eye, to see what was the matter.
Immediately, on observing a large, fat, overgrown boy, as round as a
dumpling, lying on a bed of roses, he gave a cry of delight, followed
by a gigantic peal of laughter, which was heard three miles off, and
picking up Master No-book between his finger and thumb, with a pinch
that very nearly broke his ribs, he carried him rapidly towards his
own castle, while the fairy Do-nothing laughingly shook her head as he
passed, saying:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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