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.