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Lear, Edward, 1812-1888

"Nonsense Books"

These the Crabs, having resumed and screwed on
their claws, placed cheerfully upon their wrists, and walked away rapidly
on their hind-legs, warbling songs with a silvery voice and in a minor key.
After this, the four little people sailed on again till they came to a vast
and wide plain of astonishing dimensions, on which nothing whatever could
be discovered at first; but, as the travellers walked onward, there
appeared in the extreme and dim distance a single object, which on a nearer
approach, and on an accurately cutaneous inspection, seemed to be somebody
in a large white wig, sitting on an arm-chair made of sponge-cakes and
oyster-shells. "It does not quite look like a human being," said Violet
doubtfully; nor could they make out what it really was, till the
Quangle-Wangle (who had previously been round the world) exclaimed softly
in a loud voice, "It is the co-operative Cauliflower!"
[Illustration]
And so, in truth, it was: and they soon found that what they had taken for
an immense wig was in reality the top of the Cauliflower; and that he had
no feet at all, being able to walk tolerably well with a fluctuating and
graceful movement on a single cabbage-stalk,--an accomplishment which
naturally saved him the expense of stockings and shoes.


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