The first story in Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories opens like this:
“In the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel.”
It happened to be in the neighborhood box—a beat up old mass market paperback. The second sentence is undeniably clever, and appealing in its way, but not enough to convince me to go any further.
Back it goes!