Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/44

6 "That's not my name!" said my cunning little friend. "Don't oo know my name's 'Oh Bruno!'? That's what Sylvie always calls me, when I says mine lessons."

"Well then, what are you doing here, oh Bruno?"

"Doing mine lessons, a-course!" With that roguish twinkle in his eye, that always came when he knew he was talking nonsense.

"Oh, that's the way you do your lessons, is it? And do you remember them well?"

"Always can 'member mine lessons," said Bruno. "It's Sylvie's lessons that's so dreffully hard to 'member!" He frowned, as if in agonies of thought, and tapped his forehead with his knuckles. "I ca'n't think enough to understand them!" he said despairingly. "It wants double thinking, I believe!"

"But where's Sylvie gone?"

"That's just what I want to know!" said Bruno disconsolately. "What ever's the good of setting me lessons, when she isn't here to 'splain the hard bits?"

"I'll find her for you!" I volunteered; and, getting up, I wandered round the tree under