Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno.djvu/275

XVII] those lady-singers who think it de rigueur to decline to sing till they have been petitioned three or four times, and have pleaded failure of memory, loss of voice, and other conclusive reasons for silence——began at once:——

There be three Badgers on a mossy stone.
 * Beside a dark and covered way:

Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne.
 * And so they stay and stay——

Though their old Father languishes alone,
 * They stay, and stay, and stay.