Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/149

Rh certainly going somewhere; and we shan't even know the name of the place, till we find ourselves there! Now are you satisfied?'

I was more hopelessly bewildered than ever. 'One of us is dreaming, no doubt,' I faltered: 'or—or perhaps I'm going mad, or' The good lady laughed merrily at my discomfiture.

'Well, well! It's a shame to puzzle you so,' she said. 'I'll tell you all about it. You see, last year we couldn't settle it, do what we would. John said "Herne Bay"; and I said "Brighton"; and the boys said "somewhere where there's a circus"; not that we gave much weight to that, you know: well, and Angela (she's a growing girl, and we've got to find a new school for her, this year) she said "Portsmouth, because of the soldiers"; and Susan (she's my maid, you know) she said "Ramsgate." Well, with all those contrary opinions, somehow it ended in our going nowhere: and John and I put our heads together last week, and we settled that it should never happen again. And now, how do you think we've managed it?'

'Quite impossible to guess,' I said dreamily, as I handed back my empty cup.

'In the first place,' said the good lady, 'we