besides that, they are rolling round and round in circles, and I
don't feel comfy.'

'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.'

'But it isn't a Hedgehog, and it isn't a Tortoise. It's a little
bit of both, and I don't know its proper name.'

'Nonsense!' said Mother Jaguar. 'Everything has its proper name.
I should call it "Armadillo" till I found out the real one. And I
should leave it alone.'

So 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.
There 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.

So that; all right, Best Beloved. Do you see?

I'VE never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;