CHAPTER IX

THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG GUINEA-PIGS

The seven young guinea-pigs went into a garden full of gooseberry-bushes and tiggory-trees, under one of which they fell asleep. When they awoke they saw a large lettuce, which had grown out of the ground while they had been sleeping, and which had an immense number of green leaves. At which they all exclaimed:

“Lettuce! O lettuce Let us, O let us, O lettuce-leaves, O let us leave this tree, and eat Lettuce, O let us, lettuce-leaves!”

And instantly the seven young guinea-pigs rushed with such extreme force against the lettuce-plant, and hit their heads so vividly against its stalk, that the concussion brought on directly an incipient transitional inflammation of their noses, which grew worse and worse, and worse and worse, till it incidentally killed them—all seven.

And that was the end of the seven young guinea-pigs.