I let the smoke come out of the mountain ; and wherever there is smoke there is fire . And I laid the ashes and cinders all about ; and wherever there are cinders , cinders may be again . But they did not like to face facts , my dears , as very few people do ; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story , which , I am sure , I never told them , that the smoke was the breath of a giant , whom some gods or other had buried under the mountain ; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with ; and other nonsense of that kind . And , when folks are in that humour , I can not teach them , save by the good old birch-rod . '' And then she turned over the next five hundred years : and there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes , doing as they liked , as before . They were too lazy to move away from the mountain ; so they said , If it has blown up once , that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again . And they were few in number : but they only said , The more the merrier , but the fewer the better fare . However , that was not quite true ; for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed by the volcano , and they had eaten all the roast pigs , who , of course , could not be expected to have little ones . So they had to live very hard , on nuts and roots which they scratched out of the ground with sticks . Some of them talked of sowing corn , as their ancestors used to do , before they came into the land of Readymade ; but they had forgotten how to make ploughs -LRB- they had forgotten even how to make Jews ' harps by this time -RRB- , and had eaten all the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of Hardwork years since ; and of course it was too much trouble to go away and find more . So they lived miserably on roots and nuts , and all the weakly little children had great stomachs , and then died . `` Why , '' said Tom , `` they are growing no better than savages . '' `` And look how ugly they are all getting , '' said Ellie . `` Yes ; when people live on poor vegetables instead of roast beef and plum-pudding , their jaws grow large , and their lips grow coarse , like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes . '' And she turned over the next five hundred years . And there they were all living up in trees , and making nests to keep off the rain . And underneath the trees lions were prowling about . `` Why , '' said Ellie , `` the lions seem to have eaten a good many of them , for there are very few left now . '' `` Yes , '' said the fairy ; `` you see it was only the strongest and most active ones who could climb the trees , and so escape . '' `` But what great , hulking , broad-shouldered chaps they are , '' said Tom ; `` they are a rough lot as ever I saw . ''
`` Yes , they are getting very strong now ; XXXXX the ladies will not marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen , who can help them up the trees out of the lions ' way . ''
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