  Mid seaweed on a sultry strand, ten thousand years ago, A sun-burned baby sprawling lay, a-playing with his toe. The babe was dreaming of the day that he might swing a club, When lo! He saw a fishy thing, a-squirming in the mud. The creature was an octopus, and dangerous to pat, But the prehistoric infant never stopped to think of that. The baby’s fingernails were sharp, his appetite was prime, He clutched that deep-sea monster, for ’twas nearing supper-time, Oh! Suddenly, from out the pulp a fluid black did flow, ’Twas flavored like a barberry wine and gave a sort of glow; It squirted in the baby’s eyes; it made him gasp and blink, But to that octopus he held, and drank up all the ink. The ink was in the baby—he was bound to write a tale; So he wrote the first of stories with his little fingernail. |
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