Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and
pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and
the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and
pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose
grew longer and longer--and it hurt him hijjus!

Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said
through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is
too butch for be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank,
and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's
Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller,
we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension,
because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder
self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck'
(and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will
permanently vitiate your future career.

That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

So he pulled, and the Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile
pulled; but the Elephant's Child and the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake pulled hardest; and at last the
Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a plop that
you could hear all up and down the Limpopo.

Then the Elephant's Child sat down most hard and sudden; but
first he was careful to say 'Thank you' to the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake; and next he was kind to his poor