The Beginning of the Armadillos · page 21 2101Kindly lead me into the water once again and I’ll practice that side-stroke which you say is so easy.’102And so Stickly-Prickly practiced, and Slow-Solid swam alongside.103‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid.104‘A little more practice will make you a regular whale.105Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back and front plates two holes more, I’ll try that fascinating bend that you say is so easy.106Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’107‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly, all wet from the turbid Amazon.108‘I declare, I shouldn’t know you from one of my own family.109Two holes, I think, you said?110A little more expression, please, and don’t grunt quite so much, or Painted Jaguar may hear us.111When you’ve finished, I want to try that long dive which you say is so easy.112Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’113And so Stickly-Prickly dived, and Slow-and-Solid dived alongside.114‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid.115‘A leetle more attention to holding your breath and you will be able to keep house at the bottom of the turbid Amazon.116Now I’ll try that exercise of putting my hind legs round my ears which you say is so peculiarly comfortable.117Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’118‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly.119‘But it’s straining your back-plates a little.checked by a teacher120They are all overlapping now, instead of lying side by side.’121‘Oh, that’s the result of exercise,’ said Slow-and-Solid.122‘I’ve noticed that your prickles seem to be melting into one another, and that you’re growing to look rather more like a pinecone, and less like a chestnut-burr, than you used to.’123‘Am I?’ said Stickly-Prickly.124‘That comes from my soaking in the water.125Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’126They went on with their exercises, each helping the other, till morning came; and when the sun was high they rested and dried themselves.127Then they saw that they were both of them quite different from what they had been.128‘Stickly-Prickly,’ said Tortoise after breakfast, ‘I am not what I was yesterday; but I think that I may yet amuse Painted Jaguar.129‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly.130‘I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles--to say nothing of being able to swim.131Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!132Let’s go and find him.’133By and by they found Painted Jaguar, still nursing his paddy-paw that had been hurt the night before.134He was so astonished that he fell three times backward over his own painted tail without stopping.135‘Good morning!’ said Stickly-Prickly.136‘And how is your dear gracious Mummy this morning?’137‘She is quite well, thank you,’ said Painted Jaguar; ‘but you must forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your name.’138‘That’s unkind of you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘seeing that this time yesterday you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.’139‘But you hadn’t any shell.140It was all prickles,’ said Painted Jaguar.141‘I know it was.142Just look at my paw!’143‘You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned,’ said Slow-Solid.144‘Why are you so rude and forgetful to-day?’145‘Don’t you remember what your mother told you?’ said Stickly-Prickly,--146‘Can’t curl, but can swim-- Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!147Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’148Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round Painted Jaguar till his eyes turned truly cart-wheels in his head.149Then he went to fetch his mother.150‘Mother,’ he said, ‘there are two new animals in the woods to-day, and the one that you said couldn’t swim, swims, and the one that you said couldn’t curl up, curls; and they’ve gone shares in their prickles, I think, because both of them are scaly all over, instead of one being smooth and the other very prickly; and, besides that, they are rolling round and round in circles, and I don’t feel comfy.’151‘Son, son!’ said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can’t be anything but a Hedgehog; and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.’152‘But it isn’t a Hedgehog, and it isn’t a Tortoise.153It’s a little bit of both, and I don’t know its proper name.’154‘Nonsense!’ said Mother Jaguar.155‘Everything has its proper name.156I should call it “Armadillo” till I found out the real one.157And I should leave it alone.’158So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them alone; but the curious thing is that from that day to this, O Best Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid anything except Armadillo.159There are Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in my garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying lippety-lappety one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon in the High and Far-Off Days, are always called Armadillos, because they were so clever.160So that; all right, Best Beloved.161Do you see?162I’VE never sailed the Amazon, I’ve never reached Brazil; But the Don and Magdelana, They can go there when they will!163Yes, weekly from Southampton, Great steamers, white and gold, Go rolling down to Rio (Roll down--roll down to Rio!)164And I’d like to roll to Rio Some day before I’m old!165I’ve never seen a Jaguar, Nor yet an Armadill O dilloing in his armour, And I s’pose I never will,166Unless I go to Rio These wonders to behold-- Roll down--roll down to Rio-- Roll really down to Rio!167Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio Some day before I’m old!1 2← previousThe Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroonext →How the First Letter Was Written↑ back to Just so storiesThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/page/2/