“Oh, dear me, but what a big mouth Hippo has!” laughed Tito. “I wonder how he happened to get such a big one. He must have been the first one there when they gave out mouths.”
“I have heard something about almost every animal here,” said Jocko. “Want to hear it?”
“Yes, tell me,” said Tito, moving close to Jocko. “Where did Mr. Lion get his long hair?”
“Oh dear! don’t you know?” laughed Jocko, “Mrs. Lion pulled it so much it made it long. She hasn’t any, you see. Oh dear, yes, Mr. Lion is a henpecked husband if ever there was one.”
“You don’t tell me so,” said Tito. “What about Hippo? How did it happen he is so big and clumsy?”
“Oh, don’t you know?” said Jocko. “When the animals were being made there was a lot of each animal left and it was all stirred together, and that made Hippo. They made his body first and then they did not have enough to give him a long tail or fill in his mouth. That is the reason it is so large.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito, and Jocko laughed, too, until they nearly fell off the place where they were sitting.
“Where did old Reynard get his bushy tail, Jocko?”
“Oh, don’t you know that either?” replied Jocko. “He was caught trying to steal chickens by the farmer’s wife, and she threw the brush she was using at him with such force that it struck him handle first, and there it stuck right on his back, and he never could be rid of it.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito. “And where did the giraffe get his long neck?”