Baptiste is the world's most efficient servant. But his orderly life goes haywire when he goes to work for Count Hungerburg-Hungerburg, who decides one day that everything is named wrong. He decrees that a bed shall henceforth be called a "dreambox" and the dog "happy-at-both-ends."

See how The Castle Number Nine almost became Madeline and the Fire

Future Features:

Do you want to help the Count rename the world? Mail your suggestions to The Hungerburg-Hungerburg Dictionary of Sensible English.

Mind your manners with Baptiste on Service.

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Madeline & The Fire

Bemelmans would often recycle ideas, taking a story and running it through many different versions. In the instance of Parsley, the story of the Old Stag and the Tree first appeared as it being told to him by an Austrian acquaintance in Father Dear Father, then popped up as a short fable in a magazine, before being fully rendered as a glorious picture book.

He could work in reverse as well. The Borrowed Christmas first appeared as a story in Holiday magazine, then he published an early, more cynical draft afterward, again in Father Dear Father.

One of the most intriguing of all his ideas that he never got very far on is a reworking of one of his first books, the illustrated story The Castle No. Nine, as a Madeline tale. Following is some verse Bemelmans composed, a beginning to what might have been. (In our next update, 11 sketches will be added).

In an old house in Paris
all covered with vines

Lived twelve little girls
in two straight lines

the smartest one
was Madeline

no one was so quick
at problems in Arithmetic

Madeline knew the climate and location
(and the populations)
of all the world
nations
and every nations'
population

while the others were in anguish
Madeline just played with language

every medal
and promotion
did she earn

unitl there was nothing more tho learn

one night she sat up in bed
"girls", she said
"I'm widely read--"

over books I've pored and pored
and with knowledge
I am bored--

I'm bored with every sort
of dictionary word

in fact
I'll be blamed
if everything
isn't wrongly named

a cat--means nothing

and this oblject
which is called a bed
shall be known as a dreambox instead

let's play a game--
and give everything a name