'Humph!' said the Camel; and the Ox went away and told the Man.

At the end of the day the Man called the Horse and the Dog and
the Ox together, and said, 'Three, O Three, I'm very sorry for
you (with the world so new-and-all); but that Humph-thing in the
Desert can't work, or he would have been here by now, so I am
going to leave him alone, and you must work double-time to make
up for it.'

That made the Three very angry (with the world so new-and-all),
and they held a palaver, and an _indaba_, and a _punchayet_, and a
pow-wow on the edge of the Desert; and the Camel came chewing on
milkweed _most_ 'scruciating idle, and laughed at them. Then he
said 'Humph!' and went away again.

Presently there came along the Djinn in charge of All Deserts,
rolling in a cloud of dust (Djinns always travel that way because
it is Magic), and he stopped to palaver and pow-pow with the
Three.

'Djinn of All Deserts,' said the Horse, 'is it right for any one
to be idle, with the world so new-and-all?'

'Certainly not,' said the Djinn.

'Well,' said the Horse, 'there's a thing in the middle of your
Howling Desert (and he's a Howler himself) with a long neck and
long legs, and he hasn't done a stroke of work since Monday
morning. He won't trot.'