twelve12

ACD on camels:

Camels, Conan Doyle found, were no more congenial than his “varminty” Egyptian horse had been. “It is the strangest and most deceptive animal in the world,” he wrote. “Its appearance is so staid and respectable that you cannot give it credit for the black villainy that lurks within. It approaches you with a mildly interested and superior expression, like a patrician lady in a Sunday school. You feel that a pair of glasses at the end of a fan is the one thing lacking. Then it puts its lips gently forward, with a far-away look in its eyes, and you have just time to say, ‘The pretty dear is going to kiss me,’ when two rows of frightful green teeth clash in front of you, and you give such a backward jump as you could never have hoped at your age to accomplish.”

Ha!