“Please, I’m afraid I don’t know how to pay homage. You see, nobody ever taught me how.”
“Oh, just bow down a few times and strike your forehead once or twice on the floor, and kiss my big toe if you feel like it,” said the sleepy voice. “It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you feel inferior to me inside. It’s just part of the rigamarole and the sooner you get it over with the better. Some camels are so arrogant they absolutely refuse to do it, and then it’s really such a bore for everybody. They have to go right back to Annie and Mabel and be torn to pieces for dinner.”
When he heard this, the little camel made haste to enter the tent, and there he fell promptly on his knees and struck his forehead three times on the richly carpeted floor. After he had done this, he advanced with lowered head to embrace the unknown person’s toe. The smell of incense was strong and sweet on the air, and when his eyes had become accustomed to the dim light he saw that it was a spotlessly clean gold hoof he kissed. He glanced quickly up and looked shyly and curiously at the owner of it, and lo! it was an enormously fat and incredibly ancient camel with a coat as white as snow.
The great kingly camel was lolling back on a divan covered with silk cushions of every color of the rainbow, and with one hand he lazily fanned himself with a soft peacock-feather fan. A necklace of opals as big as alligator eggs hung around his shoulders, and elaborate earrings of opals and tiny bright diamonds studded his hairy ears. But it was his eyes which held the youngest camel entranced—they were big and brown, and heavy lids hung over them like white velvet curtains. Every time the white velvet curtains seemed about to close completely over his eyes, the old camel would snap them up again, and then slowly, sleepily, they again began falling, until the final moment when he jerked them back. This happened several times before he spoke.
“Stand up,” he said with a yawn. “You don’t have to overdo it. It’s just as bad to be too humble as it is to be too self-satisfied. There’s certainly no need to call me master, although I don’t mind at all your revering and worshiping me.” He leaned up on one elbow, slowly fanning himself, and examined the youngest camel. “You wouldn’t be bad-looking if you learned how to carry yourself better,” he said at last. “You let your head hang down as if you were ashamed of something, and you have a rather silly smile.”
“I’m sorry,” said the little camel, standing contritely before him.
“Oh, it doesn’t really make any difference,” said the white camel dreamily, and he raised his fan to hide his yawn behind the peacock feathers. “Everyone has different ideas about things. Men try to make their children sit up straight so they won’t have humps on their backs and mother camels do all they can to make their children hump themselves for fear their backs will turn out straight. It’s just a matter of preference. But now you mustn’t keep us dawdling here any longer, for it’s getting late and we must set out on our journey. Oh, in case you didn’t recognize me,” he added, “I’m the leader of the caravan of white camels that circles the earth and we must be getting started.”
“But my mother told me the caravan of white camels didn’t exist!” exclaimed the youngest camel in surprise.
“Of course we exist,” said the white leader, and instead of making any move towards rising he sank farther back into his cushions and gave a tremendous yawn. “Everything exists somehow, either in the imagination or really or only at night or simply in the daytime.” His lids sank so low over his eyes now that the little camel thought the great white leader had finally fallen asleep. But just at the last moment he jerked them up again and went on talking. “What was I saying? Oh, yes. Now, you mustn’t hold us up any longer, for we really have to get started.”
“Where are we going?” asked the young camel respectfully when he saw the white leader was making no move to rise.