tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead.
And it walked a tiny little way down its nose! There now!"
This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child, help again!
"I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!" Sylvie cried, too much excited by the
controversy to limit the number of her negatives.
"Oo don't know the reason why it did it!', Bruno scornfully retorted. "It had a welly good reason. I heerd
it say 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?' So a course it did, oo know!"
"If that's a good reason, Bruno," I said, "why shouldn't you get up that tree?"
"Shall, in a minute," said Bruno: "soon as we've done talking. Only two peoples ca'n't talk comfably togevver,
when one's getting up a tree, and the other isn't!"
It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while trees were being climbed, even
if both the 'peoples' were doing it: but it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so
I thought it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the machine that made things
longer.
This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie. "It's like a mangle," she said: "if things are put in, they
get squoze----"
"Squeezeled!" Bruno interrupted.
"Yes." Sylvie accepted the correction, but did not attempt to pronounce the word, which was evidently
new to her. "They get----like that----and they come out, oh, ever so long!"
"Once," Bruno began again, "Sylvie and me writed----"
"Wrote!" Sylvie whispered.
"Well, we wroted a Nursery-Song, and the Professor mangled it longer for us. It were 'There was a little
Man, And he had a little gun, And the bullets----'"
"I know the rest," I interrupted. "But would you say it long I mean the way that it came out of the mangle?"
"We'll get the Professor to sing it for you," said Sylvie. "It would spoil it to say it."
"I would like to meet the Professor," I said. "And I would like to take you all with me, to see some friends
of mine, that live near here. Would you like to come?"
"I don't think the Professor would like to come," said Sylvie. "He's very shy. But we'd like it very much.
Only we'd better not come this size, you know."
The difficulty had occurred to me already: and I had felt that perhaps there would be a slight awkwardness
in introducing two such tiny friends into Society. "What size will you be?" I enquired.
"We'd better come as----common children," Sylvie thoughtfully replied. "That's the easiest size to manage."
"Could you come to-day?" I said, thinking "then we could have you at the picnic!"
Sylvie considered a little. "Not to-day," she replied. " We haven't got the things ready. We'll come on----
Tuesday next, if you like. And now, really Bruno, you must come and do your lessons."