“I haven’t made any mistakes yet in my life,” he said boldly. “I can’t think of a single time I’ve been wrong.”
At this, all the little birds uttered tiny shrieks of laughter and swayed back and forth on their perches on his spinal column and on his neck and on the top of his head. To his annoyance he realized that some of them were swinging and shrieking with laughter on his tail, and he thrashed it angrily from side to side.
“Well, if you’re so smart and know so much about me,” he said furiously, “tell me once when I’ve done something I shouldn’t! I’m sure you can’t think of a single time. I know I’m a very good singer because everyone I ever met said I was, and I’m a very good poet and I’m—”
“Oh, good heavens!” screamed the dozens and dozens of little birds all together, and their shrill laughter trilled and whistled all around him.
“There’s nothing at all to laugh at!” the youngest camel cried out, stamping his foot. “I’m simply telling you the truth—”
“Oh, my goodness!” shrieked all the birds again.
“You speaking the truth!” cried the first little bird as she cavorted on the air before him, and all the birds’ tongues tinkled like little bells with laughter. “Do you remember the terrible lie you told your mother about finding the necklace?”
Either the very last crimson rays of the sun on him or his own conscience turned the little camel’s face bright red and he hung his head between his legs and looked hard at the sand.
“You’ve always made the mistake of being conceited,” one clear sweet bird’s voice sang to him, and immediately the other voices went on with it, one by one, as if it were so many verses of the same song they were singing as they fluttered about him in the evening air.
“You always made the mistake of not believing what your mother told you,” rippled the notes from one feathered throat, and the next one sang:—