How the Whale Got His Throat

In the sea, once upon a time, my dear, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackerel and the pickerel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. He ate every fish he could find in all the sea, until at last there was only one small fish left, and she was a small Clever Fish, and she swam very carefully behind the Whale's right ear so as to keep out of harm's way.

Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, 'I'm hungry.'

And the small Clever Fish said, in a small clever voice, 'Noble and generous Whale, have you ever tasted Man?'

'No,' said the Whale. 'What is he like?'

'Nice,' said the Clever Fish. 'Nice but nubbly.'

'Then fetch me some,' said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.

'One at a time is enough,' said the Clever Fish. 'If you swim to the middle of the sea, you will find, sitting on a raft, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas trousers, a pair of braces (you must NOT forget the braces), and a jack-knife, one shipwrecked Sailor, who — it is only fair to warn you — is a Person of Infinite Resource and Sagacity.'

So the Whale swam and swam to the middle of the sea, as fast as ever he could, and on a raft in the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas trousers, a pair of braces (you must particularly remember the braces), and a jack-knife, he found one single, solitary shipwrecked Sailor, trailing his toes in the water.

The Whale opened his mouth back and back and back till it very nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the shipwrecked Sailor, and the raft he was sitting on, and his blue canvas trousers, and the braces (which you MUST not forget), and the jack-knife. He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark, inside cupboards, and then he smacked his lips, so, and turned round three times on his tail.

But the Sailor, being a Person of Infinite Resource and Sagacity, was not at all pleased to find himself in the Whale's warm dark cupboards, and he stumped and he jumped and he thumped and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leapt and he crept, and he hopped and he dropped, and he crawled and he bawled, and he danced hornpipes where he really shouldn't. The Whale felt most unhappy indeed.

'This person,' groaned the Whale to the Clever Fish, 'is exceedingly nubbly, and besides he is giving me the hiccups. What shall I do?'

'Ask him to come out,' said the Clever Fish.

So the Whale called down his own throat, 'Come out and behave yourself. I have got the hiccups.'

'Not so,' called the Sailor back. 'Take me to my own beach, and I'll think about it.' And he began to dance more than ever.

'I did warn you,' said the Clever Fish, 'that he was a Person of Infinite Resource and Sagacity.'

So the Whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hiccups; and at last he saw the Sailor's own beach, and he rushed halfway up onto it, and opened his mouth as wide as wide could be.

Out walked the Sailor. But while the Whale had been swimming, he — being a Person of Infinite Resource and Sagacity — had taken his jack-knife and cut up the raft into a small square grating, all running criss-cross, and he had tied it firm with his braces (now you know why you were not to forget the braces!), and he wedged that grating good and tight into the Whale's throat, and there it stuck!

Then he stepped out onto the beach, and went home to his mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water. And so did the Whale go home too. But from that day to this, the grating in his throat, which he can neither cough up nor swallow down, prevents him eating anything except very small fish; and that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls.

The small Clever Fish went and hid herself in the mud at the bottom of the sea. She was afraid that the Whale might be cross with her.

The Sailor took his jack-knife home. He was wearing his blue canvas trousers when he walked out onto the shingle. But the braces were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with. And that is the end of that tale.

(Freely retold for bedtime from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, 1902.)