The Hindu Business Line : Straw that broke the camel’s back

Not a faithful following, I admit: for once a chap has read me he runs for his life the next time he sees me coming. But I am a man of simple tastes, and am quite willing to settle for a large following, however unfaithful, or unsuspecting, it might be.

Still, with all due modesty I must admit that I was completely bowled over to discover from Mark Twain that my admirers included a camel which he had once met in Syria a 150 years before I was born. I have reproduced the story below, almost verbatim. The camel, unfortunately, didn’t live to tell the tale.

In Syria, once, at the headwaters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye as though he was thinking of getting one made for himself.

After contemplating it awhile as an article of clothing, his thoughts turned to lunch, and so he put his foot on the coat, lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed on it, all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy.

Then, smacking his lips, he reached for the other sleeve. He tried the velvet collar next, and by the contended smiled it was obvious that he regarded it as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. Later, searching through the pockets, he stumbled on some fig-paste that I had bought in Constantinople, and some (of Sudhanshu Ranade’s) newspaper articles (in which the paste was wrapped).

But he was on dangerous ground now. He began to come across solid wisdom that made him rather groggy. And, occasionally, he would come across a laboured joke that shook him up till it loosened his teeth.

But he went on, bravely, undeterred, till at last, stumbling on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity, he began to gag and gasp.

His eyes began to stand out, and his forelegs to spread apart. And in about a quarter of a minute he fell over, stone dead; dying a death of indescribable agony.

I went up to him and pulled the manuscript from his clenched teeth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements that yours truly has ever laid before a trusting public.