# The Parsee — Just So Stories character guide

> The Parsee in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Pestonjee Bomonjee, the Parsee Pestonjee Bomonjee

**First appearance:** 0002-how-the-rhinoceros-got-his-skin

## Snapshot

A Parsee on an uninhabited Red Sea island whose cake, baked in a hat, becomes the instrument of a Rhinoceros's comeuppance.

## Who they are

Pestonjee Bomonjee is a Parsee cast away on a hot island with three cakes and no company, until a Rhinoceros swims over and eats his cake — hat and all — with appalling manners. Rather than rage, the Parsee bakes a second cake laced with stale ship's biscuit, crumbs, and dead locusts, and waits. His patient, almost cheerful revenge gives the story its shape: a small man's slow arithmetic against a large animal's greed, and the reason the Rhinoceros wears his skin buttoned underneath to this day.

## In the story

### [How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/chapters/how-the-rhinoceros-got-his-skin)

The Parsee (Pestonjee Bomonjee) bakes a cake, has it stolen by the Rhinoceros, and later exacts revenge by filling the Rhinoceros's skin with cake-crumbs.

### [List of Illustrations](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/chapters/list-of-illustrations)

Illustrated eating cake on an uninhabited island and later sitting in a palm-tree watching the Rhinoceros.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/characters/the_parsee
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/just_so_stories_se/characters