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Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety, the beginning of the Armadillos by Rudyard Kipling.

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This, O Best Beloved, is another story of the high and far off times.

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In the very middle of those times was a stickly prickly hedgehog, and he lived on the

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banks of the turbid Amazon, eating Shelley snails and things.

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And he had a friend, a slow, solid tortoise, who lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon,

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eating green lettuces and things.

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And so, that was all right, Best Beloved, do you say?

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But also, at the same time, in those high and far off times, there was a painted jaguar,

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when he lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon team, and he ate everything he could catch.

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When he could not catch deer or monkeys, he would eat frogs and beetles.

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And when he could not catch frogs and beetles, he went to his mother jaguar and she told

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him how to eat hedgehogs and tortoises.

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She said to him, "Ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, my son.

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When you find a hedgehog, you must drop him into the water and he will then uncoyle.

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And when you catch a tortoise, you must scoop him out of this shell with your paw."

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And so that was all right, Best Beloved.

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One beautiful night, on the banks of the turbid Amazon, painted jaguar, found stickly, prickly

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hedgehog and slow, solid tortoise, sitting under the trunk of a fallen tree.

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They could not run away.

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And so stickly, prickly, curled himself up into a ball, because he was a hedgehog and slow,

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solid tortoise, drew his head and his feet into his shell as far as they would go, because

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he was a tortoise.

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And so that was all right, Best Beloved.

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Do you see?

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Now attend to me, said painted jaguar, because this is very important.

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My mother said that when I meet a hedgehog, I am to drop him into the water and then he

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will uncoyle.

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And when I meet a tortoise, I am to scoop him out of his shell with my paw.

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Now, which of you is the hedgehog and which of you is the tortoise?

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Because to save my spots, I cannot tell.

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Are you sure of what your mummy told you, said stickly, prickly hedgehog?

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Are you quite sure?

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Perhaps she said that when you uncoyle tortoise, you must shell him out the water with a

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scoop.

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And when you pour a hedgehog, you must drop him on the shell.

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Are you sure of what your mummy told you, said slow and solid tortoise?

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Are you quite sure?

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Perhaps she said that when you water a hedgehog, you must drop him into your paw.

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And when you meet a tortoise, you must shell him until he uncoyle.

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I don't think it was like that at home, said the painted jaguar, but he felt a little puzzled.

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But please, say it again more distinctly.

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When you scoop water with your paw, you uncoyle it with a hedgehog, said stickly prickly.

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Remember that because it's important.

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But said the tortoise.

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When you pour your meat, you drop it into a tortoise with a scoop.

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Why can't you understand?

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You are making my spot say, said painted jaguar.

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And besides, I don't want your advice at all.

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I only want to know which of you is hedgehog and which of you is tortoise.

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I shan't tell you, said stickly prickly.

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But you can scoop me out of my shell if you like.

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"Aha," said painted jaguar.

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Now I know your tortoise.

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You thought I wouldn't.

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Now I will.

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The painted jaguar darted out of his paddy paw, just as stickly prickly curled himself up.

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And of course, jaguar's paddy paw was just filled with prickles.

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Worse than that.

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He knocked stickly prickly away and away into the woods in the bushes, where it was too

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dark to find him.

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Then he put his paddy paw into his mouth, and of course the prickles hurt him worse than

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ever.

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As soon as he could speak, he said, "Now I know he isn't tortoise at all."

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But, and then he scratched his head with his unpretty prickly paw.

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"How do I know that the other is tortoise?"

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"But I am tortoise," said slow and solid.

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Your mother was quite right.

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She said that you were to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.

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Begin.

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You didn't say that, she said a minute ago, said painted jaguar, sucking the prickles out

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of his paddy paw?

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You said she said something quite different.

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Well, suppose you say that I said that she said something quite different.

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I don't see that it makes any difference.

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Because if she said what you said, I said she said, it's just the same as if I said what

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she said, she said.

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On the other hand, if you think she said that you were to uncoil me with a scoop instead

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of pouring me into drops from with a shell, I can't help.

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Can I?"

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"But you said you wanted to be scooped out of your shell with my paw," said painted jaguar.

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"If you'll think again, you'll find that I didn't say anything of the kind."

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I said that your mother said that you were to scoop me out of my shell, said slow and solid.

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"What will happen if I do?" said the jaguar, most sniffly and most cautious.

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I don't know, because I'd never been scooped out of my shell before.

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But I tell you, truly, if you want to see me swim away, you've only got to drop me into

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the water.

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"I don't believe it," said painted jaguar.

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"You've mixed up all the things my mother told me to do with the things that you asked

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me whether I was sure that she didn't say.

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Till I don't know whether I'm on my head or my painted tail, and now you come and tell

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me something I can understand, and it makes me more mixing than before."

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My mother told me that I was to drop one of you, or two, into the water, and as you seem

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so anxious to be dropped, I don't think that you do want to be dropped.

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So jump into the turbid Amazon and be quick about it.

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"I warn you, that your mummy won't be pleased.

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Don't tell her I didn't tell you," said slow and solid.

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If you say another word about what my mother said, the jaguar answered, but he had not finished

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the sentence before slow and solid quietly dived into the turbid Amazon.

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I swam under the water for a long way and came out on the other bank where stickly prickly

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was waiting for him.

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That was a very narrow escape," said stickly prickly.

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"I don't rib painted jaguar.

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What did you tell him that you were?"

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I told him truthfully that I was a truthful tortoise, but he didn't believe it, and he

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made me jump into the river to see if I was, and I was, and he is surprised.

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Now he's gone to tell his mummy, listen to him.

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They could hear painted jaguar, roaring up and down among the trees and the bushes, by

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the side of the turbid Amazon.

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Till his mummy came.

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"Son, son," said his mother, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

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"What have you been doing that you shouldn't have done?"

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I tried to scoop something that said it wanted to be scooped out of its shell, with my

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paw, and my paw is full of pericols," said painted jaguar.

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"Son, son," said his mother, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

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"By the prickles in your paddy paw, I see that it must have been a hedgehog.

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You should have dropped him into the water."

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I did that to the other thing, and he said he was a tortoise, and I didn't believe him,

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it was quite true, and he dived under the turbid Amazon, and he won't come up again, and

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I have nothing at all to eat, and I think we had better find lodging's elsewhere.

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They are too clever on the turbid Amazon for poor me."

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"Son, son," said his mother, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

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"Now attend to me, and remember what I say." A hedgehog curled himself up into a ball,

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and his prickled stick out everywhere, every which way it once.

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"But this, you will know is the hedgehog."

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I don't like that old lady one little bit said stickly prickly, under the shadow of a largely.

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I wonder what else she knows.

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A tortoise can't kill himself up, mother Jaguar went on, ever so many times, graciously waving

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her tail.

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He only draws his head and legs into a shell, by this you may know the tortoise.

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"I don't like this old lady at all, at all," said slow and steady tortoise.

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Even painted Jaguar can't forget those directions.

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"It's a great pity that you can't swim stickly prickly."

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Don't talk to me, said stickly prickly, just think how much better it would be if you

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could curl down.

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This is a mess.

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Listen to painted Jaguar.

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Painted Jaguar was sitting on the banks of the turbid Amazon sucking prickles out of his

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paw and saying to himself, "Can't curl but can swim.

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Slow solid, that's him.

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He'll never forget that.

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This month of Sundays said stickly prickly.

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"Hold up my chin, slow and solid.

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I'm going to try to learn to swim.

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It may be useful."

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Excellent, said slow and solid.

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And he held up stickly prickly's chin, while stickly prickly kicked in the waters of

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the turbid Amazon.

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He'll make a fine swimmer yet," said slow and solid.

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"Now, if you can unlace my back plates a little, I'll see what I can do towards curling

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up.

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It may be useful."

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Stickly prickly helped to unlace tortoises back plates so that by twisting and straining,

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slow and solid actually managed to curl up a titty witty bit.

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Excellent, said stickly prickly.

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But I shouldn't do any more just now.

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It's making you black in the face.

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Kindly lead me into the water once again and I'll practice that side stroke, you say it

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is so easy.

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And so stickly prickly practice and slow and solid swam alongside.

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Excellent, said slow and solid.

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A little more practice will make your regular while.

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Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back in front plates two holes more, I'll try

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that fascinating bend that you say is so easy.

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Won't painted jaguar be surprised.

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Excellent, said stickly prickly, all wet from the turbid Amazon.

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I declare I shouldn't know you from one of my own family.

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Two holes, I think you said.

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A little bit more expression please and don't grunt quite so much or painted jaguar may hear

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us.

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When you finished, I want to try that long dive which you say is so easy.

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Won't painted jaguar be surprised.

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And so stickly prickly dived and slow and solid dived alongside.

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Excellent, said slow and solid.

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A little more attention to holding your breath and you'll be able to keep house at the bottom

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of the turbid Amazon.

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Now, I'll try the exercise of putting my hind legs around my ears which you say is so

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peculiarly comfortable.

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Won't painted jaguar be surprised.

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Excellent, said stickly prickly, but it's draining your back plates a little.

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They're all overlapping now, instead of the lying side by side.

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"Om, that's the result of exercise," said slow and solid.

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"I've noticed that your prickles seem to be melting into one another and that you're

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growing to look rather more like a pine cone, unless like a chestnut bird than you use

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to."

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"Am I?" said stickly prickly.

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That comes from soaking in the water.

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"Om, won't painted jaguar be surprised."

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They went on with their exercises, each helping the other till morning came and when the

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sun was high they rested and dried themselves.

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Then they saw that they were both very different form from what they had been.

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Stickly prickly, said tortoise after breakfast.

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"I am not what I was yesterday, but I think that I may yet amused painted jaguar."

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That was the very thing I was thinking just now said stickly prickly.

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I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles to say nothing of being able

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to swim.

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"Om, won't painted jaguar be surprised.

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Let's go and find him."

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I am by. They found painted jaguar, still nursing his paddy paw that had been hurt the night

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before.

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He was so astonished that he fell three times backwards over his own painted tail without

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stopping.

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"Good morning," said stickly prickly, "and how is your dear gracious mummy this morning?"

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"She is quite well," said painted jaguar, "but you must forgive me if I was not the

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one, if I do not at this premise moment, recall your name."

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"That's some kind of you," said stickly prickly, "seeing that this time yesterday you tried

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to scoop me out of my shell with your paw."

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"But you hadn't any shell.

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It was all prickles," said painted jaguar.

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"I know it was.

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Just look at my paw."

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"You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned," said slow solid.

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"Why are you so rude and forgetful today?

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Don't you remember what your mother told you?" said stickly prickly, "can't curl but can

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swim stickly prickly, that's him."

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Kills up but can't swim, slow solid that's him.

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Then they both curled themselves up and rolled down and round and round the painted jaguar

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till his eyes turned truly cartwheels in his head.

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Then he went to fetch his mum.

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"Mother," he said, "there are two new animals in the woods today and the one that you said

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couldn't swim swims and the one that you said couldn't curl up curls.

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And they've gone shares in their pickles."

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I think because both of them are scaly all over, instead one of them being smooth and

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the other being prickly.

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

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"Son, son," said mother jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

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"A hedgehog is a hedgehog and can't be anything but a hedgehog and a tortoise is a tortoise

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and can never be anything else."

228
00:17:21,740 --> 00:17:24,820
But it isn't a hedgehog and it isn't a tortoise.

229
00:17:24,820 --> 00:17:29,500
It's a little bit of both and I don't know its proper name.

230
00:17:29,500 --> 00:17:33,540
Nonsense said mother jaguar, "Everything has a proper name.

231
00:17:33,540 --> 00:17:41,540
I should call it Armadillo till I find out the real one and I should leave it alone."

232
00:17:41,540 --> 00:17:48,540
So painted jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them alone.

233
00:17:48,540 --> 00:17:53,540
But the curious thing is, from that day to this, O best beloved.

234
00:17:53,540 --> 00:17:59,780
No one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called stickly prickly or slow solid,

235
00:17:59,780 --> 00:18:03,300
anything except Armadillo.

236
00:18:03,300 --> 00:18:07,540
There are hedgehogs and tortoises in other places, of course.

237
00:18:07,540 --> 00:18:09,940
There are some in my garden.

238
00:18:09,940 --> 00:18:15,940
But the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying, liberty-lapity, one over the

239
00:18:15,940 --> 00:18:21,660
other, like pine cone scales, that lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon in the high

240
00:18:21,660 --> 00:18:28,260
and far off days are called Armadillo's because they were so clever.

241
00:18:28,260 --> 00:18:32,020
So that, all right best beloved, do you see?

242
00:18:32,020 --> 00:18:42,020