SKOONK
The Skoonk has a very sad story. To begin with he only eats sea-shells because he has a weak indigestion, and as a result he has become terribly thin. He is nearly always cold too. But what is worst is that he is hardly ever allowed to talk. Somehow the diet of sea-shells has made his voice shrill and squeaky, like the sound of a knife scraped on a plate. So whenever he starts to talk the rest of the animals say, as politely as they can but very quickly, “Oh, please stop!” And if he goes on they are apt to throw things at him. This is not because they do not love him, for he is gentle and well-bred, but they just cannot bear his voice. So now he never talks, he writes hundreds of letters. His friends have given him a typewriter, and he sits in his house all day and writes to them, one after another. He tells them what the weather is like, and if the water was hot for his bath, and what he wants to have for his next birthday. Sometimes he gives a party and for these occasions he puts up a big blackboard in the drawing-room with “How do you do? I am glad to see you. Help yourself to tea,” written on it. Then he does not have to say a word but just smiles and shakes hands. Many people who can speak quite well have taken up the idea from him because they think it saves so much trouble.
He lives in a little house of dark red brick with purple tiles which his friends built for him because they felt sorry for him. (It was one day after they had thrown a brick at him.)
On the whole he doesn’t have a bad time really. He looks pathetic in the picture because it was taken on a day when the rest were all going to sing at a concert. Of course he was not allowed to, and he did want to so much. However he was allowed to sell programs and that made him feel happy again.