The reptile, you’ll pronounce him green.”

“Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,”

Replies the man, “I’ll turn him out:

And when before your eyes I’ve set him,

If you don’t find him black, I’ll eat him.”

He said; then full before their sight

Produc’d the beast, and lo! ’twas white.

Both star’d, the man look’d wondrous wise—

“My children,” the Camelion cries,

Then first the creature found a tongue,