And instantly the seven young guinea-pigs rushed with such extreme force against the lettuce-plant, and hit their heads so vividly against its stalk, that the concussion brought on directly an incipient transitional inflammation of their noses, which grew worse and worse, and worse and worse, till it incidentally killed them—all seven.
And that was the end of the seven young guinea-pigs.
CHAPTER X
THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG CATS
The seven young cats set off on their travels with great delight and rapacity. But, on coming to the top of a high hill, they perceived at a long distance off a clangle-wangle (or, as it is more properly written, clangel-wangel); and, in spite of the warning they had had, they ran straight up to it.
(Now, the clangle-wangles are most dangerous and delusive beasts, and by no means commonly to be met with. They live in the water as well as on land, using their long tails as a sail when in the former element. Their speed is extreme, but their habits of life are domestic and superfluous, and their general demeanor pensive and pellucid. On summer evenings they may sometimes be observed near the Lake Pipple-popple, standing on their heads, and humming their national melodies. They subsist entirely on vegetables, excepting when they eat veal or mutton, or pork or beef, or fish or saltpetre.)
The moment the clangle-wangle saw the seven young cats approach, he ran away; and as he ran straight on for four months, and the cats, though they continued to run, could never overtake him, they all gradually died of fatigue and exhaustion, and never afterward recovered.
And this was the end of the seven young cats.
CHAPTER XI
THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG FISHES
The seven young fishes swam across the Lake Pipple-popple, and into the river, and into the ocean, where, most unhappily for them, they saw on the fifteenth day of their travels, a bright-blue boss-woss, and instantly swam after him. But the blue boss-woss plunged into a
perpendicular,