Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/155

VIII] common property nowfor a new Code of Rules for Letter-writing! Please invent some more, little boy!"

"Well, another thing greatly needed, little girl, is some way of expressing that we don't mean anything."

"Explain yourself, little boy! Surely you can find no difficulty in expressing a total absence of meaning?"

"I mean that you should be able, when you don't mean a thing to be taken seriously, to express that wish. For human nature is so constituted that whatever you write seriously is taken as a joke, and whatever you mean as a joke is taken seriously! At any rate, it is so in writing to a lady!"

"Ah! you're not used to writing to ladies!" Lady Muriel remarked, leaning back in her chair, and gazing thoughtfully into the sky. "You should try."

"Very good," said Arthur. "How many ladies may I begin writing to? As many as I can count on the fingers of both hands?"

"As many as you can count on the thumbs of one hand!" his lady-love replied with much