The Elephant's Child (6)

The Elephant's Child (6)

So he said good-bye very politely to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, and helped to coil him up on the rock again, and went on, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about.

Because he could not pick it up, till he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.

But is was really the Crocodile, O best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye ー Like this !



" Scuse me, " said the Elephant's Child most politely, but do you happen to have seen a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts.

Then Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud ; and the Elephant's Child stepped back most politey, because he did not wish to be spanked again.

" Come hither, Little one, " said the Crocodile.
※
Come hither, Little one : こちらへおいで、坊や。

" Why, do you ask such a thing ? "

" Scuse me, " said the Elephant's Child most politely, but my father has spanked me, my mother has spanked me, not to mention my tall aunt, the Ostrich, and my broad aunt, the Hippopotamus , and my hairy uncle, the Baboon, and including the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with the scalesome, flailsome tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them; and so, if it's quite all the same to you, I don't want to be spanked any more. "

(6/20)