“Then here is a crocodile ready for the pot.” The boy ran off and returned with the men of the village, who helped him to kill the crocodile. “And do your parents?” He said yes again. “Do you like crocodile meat?” asked the rabbit. Then along came a plump rabbit who said, “Well, I can’t give a good opinion without seeing this matter as it happened from the beginning.” Grumbling, the crocodile opened his mouth to tell him-and the boy jumped out to safety on the riverbank. Next to pass by was an old horse, who had the same opinion. When the boy asked his opinion, the donkey said, “Now that I’m old and can no longer work, my master has driven me out for the leopards to get me!” “See?” said the crocodile. “That is the way of the world.” The boy refused to believe that, so the crocodile agreed not to swallow him without getting an opinion from the first three witnesses to pass by. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “Is this how you repay my goodness-with badness?” cried the boy. So the boy went up to the crocodile-and instantly was seized by the teeth in that long mouth. And she would begin in the way that all Mandinka storytellers began: “At this certain time, in this certain village, lived this certain person.” It was a small boy, she said, of about their rains, who walked to the riverbank one day and found a crocodile trapped in a net. ” “Please!” the children would chorus, wriggling in anticipation. “Surrounded by them, she would growl, “Let me tell a story.
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