Question

Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a man. One day the man took flour, water, currants, plums, sugar and things, and made himself one large cake. It was indeed superior and he put it on stove and baked it till it was brown and smelt most sentimental. But just as he was going to eat it there came down to the beach one Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two hungry eyes, and few manners. In those days the Rhinoceros’s skin fitted him quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere.

The Rhinoceros had never had manners. He said, ‘Hey!’ and the man left that cake and climbed to the top of a palm tree. The Rhinoceros turned over the oil-stove with his nose; the cake rolled on the sand. He spiked that cake on the horn of his nose, ate it, and went away.

Five weeks later, there was a heat wave in the Red Sea, and everybody was overwhelmed by heat. The Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days it buttoned its skin underneath with three buttons and looked like a waterproof coat. He said nothing whatever about the man’s cake, because he had eaten it all. He waddled straight into the water and blew bubbles through his nose, leaving his skin on the beach.

Presently the man came by and found the skin, and he smiled one smile that ran all round his face two times. Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Then he went to his camp and filled his hat with cake crumbs around his camp. He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake crumbs and some burned currants as ever it could possibly hold. Then he climbed to the top of his palm tree and waited for the Rhinoceros to come out of the water and put it on.

And the Rhinoceros did. He buttoned it up with the three buttons, and it tickled like cake crumbs in bed. Then he wanted to scratch, but that made it worse; and then he lay down on the sands and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake crumbs tickled him worse and worse. Then he ran to the palm tree and rubbed himself against it. He rubbed so much and so hard that he rubbed his skin into a great fold over his shoulders, and another fold underneath, where the buttons used to be, and he rubbed some more folds over his legs. And it spoiled his temper, but the cake crumbs were inside his skin and they tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy; and from that day to this, every rhinoceros has great folds in its skin and a very bad temper, all on account of the cake crumbs inside.

___

Adapted from How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, by Rudyard Kipling, Public domain.

Scroll Down

Questions
What conclusion can be drawn about the story’s meaning based on the narrator’s description of Rhinoceros?

The story shows that one must have bad manners to get cake.

The story shows that greed and bad manners are rarely rewarded.

The story shows that skin with folds is better than unwrinkled skin.

The story shows that one should never bake cake near a rhinoceros.

Answer 1

The story shows that greed and bad manners are rarely rewarded.

Rationale: The Rhinoceros rudely steals and eats the man's cake, but later suffers from the cake crumbs he carried in his skin—ending up itchy, with folds and a bad temper. The outcome punishes his greed and bad manners rather than rewarding them.