CAUTIONARY TALES FOR CHILDREN

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CAUTIONARY TALES FOR
CHILDREN

Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages
of eight and fourteen years

Verses by
H. BELLOC

———

Pictures by
B. T. B.

DUCKWORTH
3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.

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First published by Eveleigh Nash, 1907
First published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1918
Thirteenth Impression, 1957

Made and Printed in Great Britain by
Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd
London and Edinburgh

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DEDICATED

TO

BOBBY, JOHNNY, AND EDDIE

SOMERSET

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INTRODUCTION

Upon being asked by a Reader whether the versescontained in this book were true.

And is it True? It is not True.
And if it were it wouldn’t do,
For people such as me and you
Who pretty nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong.
Because if things were really so,
You would have perished long ago,
And I would not have lived to write
The noble lines that meet your sight,
Nor B. T. B. survived to draw
The nicest things you ever saw.
H. B.

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Jim,

Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eatenby a Lion.

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside,
And little Tricycles to ride,
And

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read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo—
But there it was the

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