Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/202

164 "He is very exact!" said Mein Herr.

"Is he anything like right?" I said.

"There are reasons," Mein Herr gently replied, "reasons which I am not at liberty to explain, for not mentioning definitely any Persons, Places, or Dates. One remark only I will permit myself to makethat the period of life, between the ages of a hundred-and-sixty-five and a hundred-and-seventy-five, is a specially safe one."

"How do you make that out?" I said.

"Thus. You would consider swimming to be a very safe amusement, if you scarcely ever heard of any one dying of it. Am I not right in thinking that you never heard of any one dying between those two ages?"

"I see what you mean," I said: "but I'm afraid you ca'n't prove swimming to be safe, on the same principle. It is no uncommon thing to hear of some one being drowned."

"In my country," said Mein Herr, "no one is ever drowned."

"Is there no water deep enough?"

"Plenty! But we ca'n't sink. We are all lighter than water. Let me explain," he added,