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Page 9
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."
"Bruno," 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 dreadful
bother it is."
As he said this, he savagely tore a heart's-ease 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!"
"Oh, Bruno, you shouldn't do that!" I cried. "Don't you know that's
revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!"
"River-edge?" said Bruno. "What a funny word! I suppose you call it
cooel and dangerous because, if you went too far and tumbled in, you'd
get d'owned."
"No, not river-edge," I explained; "rev-enge" (saying the word very
slowly and distinctly). But I couldn't help thinking that Bruno's
explanation did very well for either word.
"Oh!" said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without attempting to
repeat the word.
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