Just So Stories for Little Children / Просто сказки. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Редьярд КиплингЧитать онлайн книгу.

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shouldn’t say that again if I were you[34],’ s aid the Djinn; ‘you might say it once too often. Bubbles, I want you to work[35].’

      And the Camel said ‘Humph!’ again; but no sooner had he said it than he saw his back, that he was so proud of, puffing up and puffing up into a great big lolloping humph[36].

      ‘Do you see that?’ said the Djinn. ‘That’s your very own humph that you’ve brought upon your very own self by not working. Today is Thursday, and you’ve done no work since Monday, when the work began. Now you are going to work.’

      ‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’

      ‘That’s made a-purpose,’ said the Djinn, ‘all because you missed those three days. You will be able to work now for three days without eating, because you can live on your humph; and don’t you ever say I never did anything for you. Come out of the Desert and go to the Three, and behave. Humph yourself!’

      And the Camel humphed himself, humph and all, and went away to join the Three. And from that day to this the Camel always wears a humph (we call it ‘hump’ now, not to hurt his feelings; but he has never yet caught up with the three days[37] that he missed at the beginning of the world, and he has never yet learned how to behave.

      The Camel’s hump is an ugly[38] 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 frowzy[39] head

      And a snarly-yarly voice.

      We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl[40]

      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[41];

      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!

      Questions and tasks

      1. What animals came to the Camel? What did they offer to the Camel and what was the answer?

      2. Why were the animals very angry after the

      Man had talked to them?

      3. Retell the story from the moment the Djinn appeared in it.

      4. What did the Djinn do for making the Camel work?

      5. What ‘advantages’ did the hump on the back give to the Camel?

      6. Retell the story.

      How the Rhinoceros[42]Gt 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[43]. 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[44]. 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[45]. 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[46]. In those days the Rhinoceros’s skin fitted him quite tight[47]. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere. He looked exactly like[48] a Hoah’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 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 nose, and he ate it, and he went away, waving his tail, to the desolate and Exclusively Uninhabited Interior which abuts on the islands of Mazanderan, Socotra, and the Promontories of the Larger Equinox[51]. Then the Parsee came down from his palm-tree and put the stove on its legs and recited the following Sloka, which, as you have not heard, I will now proceed to relate: —

      ‘Them that takes cakes

      Which the Parsee-man bakes

      Makes dreadful mistakes.’

      This is the picture of the Parsee beginning to eat his cake on the Uninhabited Island in the Red Sea on a very hot day; and of the Rhinoceros coming down from the Altogether Uninhabited Interior, which, as you can truthfully see, is all rocky. The Rhinoceros’s skin is quite smooth and the three buttons that button it up[49] are underneath, so you can’t see them. The squiggly things on the Parsee’s hat are the rays of the sun reflected in more-than-oriental splendour, because if I had drawn real rays they would have filled up all the picture. The cake has currants[50] in it; and the wheel-thing lying on the sand in front belonged to one of Pharaoh’s chariots when he tried to cross the Red Sea. The Parsee found it, and kept it to play with. The Parsee’s name was Pestonjee Bomonjee, and the Rhinoceros was called Strorks, because he breathed through his mouth instead of his nose. I wouldn’t ask anything about the cooking-stove if I were you.

      And there was a great deal more in that than you would think[52].

      Because, five weeks later, there was a heatwave[53] in the Red Sea, and everybody took off all the clothes they had. The Parsee took off his hat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days it buttoned underneath with

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