GORRIBLE
Gorrible is an extremely nice creature though not beautiful. He is always tired, for his feet each weigh about as much as an omnibus with three people inside, one on top, the driver and the conductor, and the conductor’s little “ting” thing altogether. So it is a terrible effort for him to walk. When he is asked out to tea he has to start several days beforehand and take a little tent to sleep in at nights while he is getting there, because his progress is so slow. After every five steps (one with each foot and one jump) he has to sit down and rest. Also he suffers terribly from flies in the summer. They will settle on the middle of his back, and he has been trying to switch them off with his tail for nearly thirty-seven years now. I don’t believe he will ever succeed.
You would hardly think to look at him that he received a medal once for rescuing some one. It was like this. One day Doolyboo, who has a bad habit of not looking what her feet are doing, walked into a pond. She cannot swim and her cries for help were pitiful to hear. Now it just happened that Gorrible was on his way to a Garden Party at Queek’s and was camping near the river so that he could have water with which to make his morning tea. He heard Doolyboo cry out and without waiting to put on his goloshes he rushed to the river. (When I say “rushed” I mean he went as fast as he could, he took six steps and two jumps between each rest and got to the water’s edge in about ten minutes). He plunged in and swam out to Doolyboo and said to her, “Catch hold of my tail—only don’t pull too hard—and breathe outwards.” Then he swam in and gave Doolyboo a nice hot drink and told her to look where she was going next time. Now Sloot says this wasn’t anything to make a fuss about because the water wasn’t deep anyway, and it is certainly true that Doolyboo was only wet to the top of her ankles, but Sloot is a mean, cowardly animal, and I think it was a perfectly splendid act of bravery for Gorrible to perform.