Then a little thrill of delight ran through me -- for I noticed that the holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves side by side, with B, R, and U marked on them, and after some search I found two more, which contained an N and an O.

By this time the `eerie' feeling had all come back again, and I suddenly observed that no crickets were chirping; so I felt quite sure that `Bruno' was a fairy, and that he was somewhere very near.

And so indeed he was -- so near that I had very nearly walked over him without seeing him; which would have been dreadful, always supposing that fairies can be walked over -- my own belief is that they are something of the nature of will-o'-the-wisps, and there's no walking over them.

Think of any pretty little boy you know, rather fat, with rosy cheeks, large dark eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go comfortably into a coffee-cup, and you'll have a very fair idea of what the little creature was like.

`What's your name, little fellow?' I began, in as soft a voice as I could manage. And, by the way, that's another of the curious things in life that I never could quite understand -- why we always begin by asking little children their names; is it because we fancy there isn't quite enough of them, and a name will help to make them a little bigger? You never thought of asking a real large man his name, now, did you? But, however that may be, I felt it quite necessary to know his name; so, as he didn't answer my question, I asked it again a little louder. `What's your name, my little man?'

`What's yours?' he said, without looking up.

`My name's Lewis Carroll,' I said, quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry with for answering so uncivilly.

`Duke of Anything?' he asked, just looking at me for a moment and then going on with his work.

`Not Duke at all,' I said, a little ashamed of having to confess it.

`You're big enough to be two Dukes,' said the little creature; `I suppose you're Sir Something, then?'

`No,' I said, feeling more and more ashamed. `I haven't got any title.'

The fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces as fast as he got them out of the ground.

After a few minutes I tried again. `Please tell me what your name is.'

`B'uno,' the little fellow answered, very readily; `why didn't you say "please" before?'

`That's something like what we used to be taught in the nursery,' I thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred and fifty of them) to the time when I used to be a little child myself. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him: `Aren't you one of the fairies that teach children to be good?'

`Well, we have to do that sometimes,' said Bruno. `and a d'eadful bother it is.' As he said this he savagely tore a heartsease in two, and trampled on the pieces.

`What are you doing there, Bruno?' I said.

`Spoiling Sylvie's garden,' was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself: `The nasty c'oss thing -- wouldn't let me go and play this morning, though I wanted to ever so much -- said I must finish my lessons first -- lessons, indeed! -- I'll vex her finely, though!'