were hopping to get the other.”
Here I ventured on a question. “Do you mean ‘hopping,’ or ‘hoping’?”
“Bofe,” said Bruno. “And the Man took the Goat out of the Sack.”
(“We haven’t heard of the sack before,” I said. “Nor you won’t hear of
it again,” said Bruno). “And he said to the Goat, ‘Oo will walk about
here till I comes back.’ And he went and he tumbled into a deep hole.
And the Goat walked round and round. And it walked under the Tree.
And it wug its tail. And it looked up in the Tree. And it sang a sad
little Song. Oo never heard such a sad little Song!”
“Can you sing it, Bruno?” I asked.
“Iss, I can,” Bruno readily replied. “And I sa’n’t. It would make
Sylvie cry–”
“It wouldn’t!’, Sylvie interrupted in great indignation.
“And I don’t believe the Goat sang it at all!”
“It did, though!” said Bruno. “It singed it right froo.
I sawed it singing with its long beard–”
“It couldn’t sing with its beard,” I said, hoping to puzzle the little
fellow: “a beard isn’t a voice.”
“Well then, oo couldn’t walk with Sylvie!” Bruno cried triumphantly.
“Sylvie isn’t a foot!”
I thought I had better follow Sylvie’s example, and be silent for a
while. Bruno was too sharp for us.
“And when it had singed all the Song, it ran away–for to get along to
look for the Man, oo know. And the Crocodile got along after it–for to
bite it, oo know. And the Mouse got along after the Crocodile.”
“Wasn’t the Crocodile running?” Sylvie enquired. She appealed to me.
“Crocodiles do run, don’t they?”
I suggested “crawling” as the proper word.
“He wasn’t running,” said Bruno, “and he wasn’t crawling.
He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever
so high in the air–”
“What did he do that for?” said Sylvie.
“’cause he hadn’t got a toofache!” said Bruno. “Ca’n’t oo make out
nuffin wizout I ‘splain it? Why, if he’d had a toofache, a course he’d
have held his head down–like this–and he’d have put a lot of warm
blankets round it!”
“If he’d had any blankets,” Sylvie argued.
“Course he had blankets!” retorted her brother. “Doos oo think
Crocodiles goes walks wizout blankets? And he frowned with his
eyebrows. And the Goat was welly flightened at his eyebrows!”
“I’d never be afraid of eyebrows?” exclaimed Sylvie.
“I should think oo would, though, if they’d got a Crocodile fastened to
them, like these had! And so the Man jamp, and he jamp, and at last he
got right out of the hole.”
Sylvie gave another little gasp: this rapid dodging about among the
characters of the Story had taken away her breath.
“And he runned away for to look for the Goat, oo know. And he heard
the Lion grunting—”
“Lions don’t grunt,” said Sylvie.
“This one did,” said Bruno. “And its mouth were like a large cupboard.
And it had plenty of room in its mouth. And the Lion runned after the
Man for to eat him, oo know. And the Mouse runned after the Lion.”
“But the Mouse was running after the Crocodile,” I said: “he couldn’t
run after both!”
Bruno sighed over the density of his audience, but explained very
patiently. “He did runned after bofe: ’cause they went the same way!
And first he caught the Crocodile, and then he didn’t catch the Lion.
And when he’d caught the Crocodile, what doos oo think he did–’cause
he’d got pincers in his pocket?”
“I ca’n’t guess,” said Sylvie.
[Image…’He wrenched out that crocodile’s toof!’]
“Nobody couldn’t guess it!” Bruno cried in high glee.
“Why, he wrenched out that Crocodile’s toof!”
“Which tooth?” I ventured to ask.
But Bruno was not to be puzzled. “The toof he were going to bite the
Goat with, a course!”
“He couldn’t be sure about that,” I argued,
“unless he wrenched out all its teeth.”
Bruno laughed merrily, and half sang, as he swung himself backwards and
forwards, “He did–wrenched–out–all its teef!”
“Why did the Crocodile wait to have them wrenched out?” said Sylvie.
“It had to wait,” said Bruno.
I ventured on another question. “But what became of the Man who said