Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/350

312 "Why, of course he will!" chuckled the Professor. "Why, it's his birthday, don't you know? And his health will be drunk, and all that sort of thing. What would the Banquet be without him?"

"Ever so much nicer," said Bruno. But he said it in a very low voice, and nobody but Sylvie heard him.

The Professor chuckled again. "It'll be a jolly Banquet, now you've come, my little man! I am so glad to see you again!"

"I 'fraid we've been very long in coming," Bruno politely remarked.

"Well, yes," the Professor assented. "However, you're very short now you're come: that's some comfort." And he went on to enumerate the plans for the day. "The Lecture comes first," he said. "That the Empress insists on. She says people will eat so much at the Banquet, they'll be too sleepy to attend to the Lecture afterwardsand perhaps she's right. There'll just be a little refreshment, when the people first arriveas a kind of surprise for the Empress, you know. Ever since she's beenwell, not quite so clever as she