Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (75 page)

‘None,’ I admitted, feeling a little puzzled at the drift of his remarks.
‘How do you secure that object?’

‘By examining him at the end of his thirty or forty years—not at the beginning,’ he gently replied.
‘On an average, the knowledge then found is about one-fifth of what it was at first—the process of forgetting going on at a very steady uniform rate—and he, who forgets least, gets most honour, and most rewards.’

‘Then you give him the money when he needs it no longer?
And you make him live most of his life on nothing!’

‘Hardly that.
He gives his orders to the tradesmen: they supply him, for forty, sometimes fifty years, at their own risk: then he gets his Fellowship—which pays him in one year as much as your Fellowships pay in fifty—and then he can easily pay all his bills, with interest.’

‘But suppose he fails to get his Fellowship?
That must occasionally happen.’

‘That occasionally happens.’
It was Mein Herr’s turn, now, to make admissions.

‘And what becomes of the tradesmen?’

‘They calculate accordingly.
When a man appears to be getting alarmingly ignorant, or stupid, they will sometimes refuse to supply him any longer.
You have no idea with what enthusiasm a man will begin to rub up his forgotten sciences or languages, when his butcher has cut off the supply of beef and mutton!’

‘And who are the Examiners?’

‘The young men who have just come, brimming over with knowledge.
You would think it a curious sight,’ he went on, ‘to see mere boys examining such old men.
I have known a man set to examine his own grandfather.
It was a little painful for both of them, no doubt.
The old gentleman was as bald as a coot—’

‘How bald would that be?’
I’ve no idea why I asked this question.
I felt I was getting foolish.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BRUNO’S PICNIC

‘AS bald as bald’ was the bewildering reply.
‘Now, Bruno, I’ll tell you a story.’

‘And I’ll tell oo a story,’ said Bruno, beginning in a great hurry for fear of Sylvie getting the start of him: ‘once there were a Mouse—a little tiny Mouse—such a tiny little Mouse!
Oo never saw such a tiny Mouse—’

‘Did nothing ever happen to it, Bruno?’
I asked.
‘Haven’t you anything more to tell us, besides its being so tiny?’

‘Nothing never happened to it,’ Bruno solemnly replied.

‘Why did nothing never happen to it?’
said Sylvie, who was sitting, with her head on Bruno’s shoulder, patiently waiting for a chance of beginning her story.

‘It were too tiny,’ Bruno explained.

‘That’s no reason!’
I said.
‘However tiny it was, things might happen to it.’

Bruno looked pityingly at me, as if he thought me very stupid.
‘It were too tiny,’ he repeated.
‘If anything happened to it, it would die—it were so very tiny!’

‘Really that’s enough about its being tiny!’
Sylvie put in.
‘Haven’t you invented any more about it?’

‘Haven’t invented no more yet.’

‘Well, then, you shouldn’t begin a story till you’ve invented more!
Now be quiet, there’s a good boy, and listen to my story.’

And Bruno, having quite exhausted all his inventive faculty, by beginning in too great a hurry, quietly resigned himself to listening.

‘Tell about the other Bruno, please,’ he said coaxingly.

Sylvie put her arms round his neck, and began:—

‘The wind was whispering among the trees,’ (‘That wasn’t good manners!’
Bruno interrupted.
‘Never mind about manners,’ said Sylvie) ‘and it was evening—a nice moony evening, and the Owls were hooting—’

‘Pretend they weren’t Owls!’
Bruno pleaded, stroking her cheek with his fat little hand.
‘I don’t like Owls.
Owls have such great big eyes.
Pretend they were Chickens!’

‘Are you afraid of their great big eyes, Bruno?’
I said.

‘Aren’t ‘fraid of nothing,’ Bruno answered in as careless a tone as he could manage: ‘they’re ugly with their great big eyes.
I think if they cried, the tears would be as big—oh, as big as the moon!’
And he laughed merrily.
‘Doos Owls cry ever, Mister Sir?’

‘Owls cry never,’ I said gravely, trying to copy Bruno’s way of speaking: ‘they’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you know.’

‘Oh, but they have!’
Bruno exclaimed.
‘They’re ever so sorry, ‘cause they killed the poor little Mouses!’

‘But they’re not sorry when they’re hungry, I suppose?’

‘Oo don’t know nothing about Owls!’
Bruno scornfully remarked.
‘When they’re hungry, they’re very, very sorry they killed the little Mouses, ‘cause if they hadn’t killed them there’d be sumfin for supper, oo know!’

Bruno was evidently getting into a dangerously inventive state of mind, so Sylvie broke in with ‘Now I’m going on with the story.
So the Owls—the Chickens, I mean—were looking to see if they could find a nice fat Mouse for their supper—’

‘Pretend it was a nice ‘abbit!’
said Bruno.

‘But it wasn’t a nice habit, to kill Mouses,’ Sylvie argued.
‘I ca’n’t pretend that!’

‘I didn’t say "habit", oo silly fellow!’
Bruno replied with a merry twinkle in his eye.
‘‘abbits—that runs about in the fields!’

‘Rabbit?
Well it can be a Rabbit, if you like.
But you mustn’t alter my story so much, Bruno.
A Chicken couldn’t eat a Rabbit!’

‘But it might have wished to see if it could try to eat it.’

‘Well, it wished to see if it could try—oh, really, Bruno, that’s nonsense!
I shall go back to the Owls.’

‘Well, then, pretend they hadn’t great eyes!’

‘And they saw a little Boy,’ Sylvie went on, disdaining to make any further corrections.
‘And he asked them to tell him a story.

And the Owls hooted and flew away—’ (‘Oo shouldn’t say "flewed"; oo should say "flied",’ Bruno whispered.
But Sylvie wouldn’t hear.) ‘And he met a Lion.
And he asked the Lion to tell him a story.
And the Lion said "yes", it would.
And, while the Lion was telling him the story, it nibbled some of his head off—’

‘Don’t say "nibbled"!’
Bruno entreated.
‘Only little things nibble—little thin sharp things, with edges—’

‘Well, then, it "nubbled",’ said Sylvie.
‘And when it had nubbled all his head off, he went away, and he never said "thank you"!’

‘That were very rude,’ said Bruno.
‘If he couldn’t speak, he might have nodded—no, he couldn’t nod.
Well, he might have shaked hands with the Lion!’

‘Oh, I’d forgotten that part!’
said Sylvie.
‘He did shake hands with it.
He came back again, you know, and he thanked the Lion very much, for telling him the story.’

‘Then his head had growed up again?’
said Bruno.

‘Oh yes, it grew up in a minute.
And the Lion begged pardon, and said it wouldn’t nubble off little boys’ heads—not never no more!’

Bruno looked much pleased at this change of events.
‘Now that are a really nice story!’
he said.
‘Aren’t it a nice story, Mister Sir?’

‘Very,’ I said.
‘I would like to hear another story about that Boy.’

‘So would I,’ said Bruno, stroking Sylvie’s cheek again.
‘Please tell about Bruno’s Picnic; and don’t talk about nubbly Lions!’

‘I wo’n’t, if it frightens you,’ said Sylvie.

‘Flightens me!’
Bruno exclaimed indignantly.
‘It isn’t that!
It’s ‘cause "nubbly"‘s such a grumbly word to say—when one person’s got her head on another person’s shoulder.
When she talks like that,’ he exclaimed to me, ‘the talking goes down bofe sides of my face—all the way to my chin—and it doos tickle so!
It’s enough to make a beard grow, that it is!’

He said this with great severity, but it was evidently meant for a joke: so Sylvie laughed—a delicious musical little laugh, and laid her soft cheek on the top of her brother’s curly head, as if it were a pillow, while she went on with the story.
‘So this Boy—’

‘But it wasn’t me, oo know!’
Bruno interrupted.
‘And oo needn’t try to look as if it was, Mister Sir!’

I represented, respectfully, that I was trying to look as if it wasn’t.

‘—he was a middling good Boy—’

‘He were a welly good Boy!’
Bruno corrected her.
‘And he never did nothing he wasn’t told to do—’

‘That doesn’t make a good Boy!’
Sylvie said contemptuously.

‘That do make a good Boy!’
Bruno insisted.

Sylvie gave up the point.
‘Well, he was a very good Boy, and he always kept his promises, and he had a big cupboard—’

‘—for to keep all his promises in!’
cried Bruno.

‘If he kept all his promises,’ Sylvie said, with a mischievous look in her eyes, ‘he wasn’t like some Boys I know of!’

‘He had to put salt with them, a-course,’ Bruno said gravely: ‘oo ca’n’t keep promises when there isn’t any salt.
And he kept his birthday on the second shelf.’

‘How long did he keep his birthday?’
I asked.
‘I never can keep mine more than twenty-four hours.’

‘Why, a birthday stays that long by itself!’
cried Bruno.
‘Oo doosn’t know how to keep birthdays!
This Boy kept his a whole year!’

‘And then the next birthday would begin,’ said Sylvie.
‘So it would be his birthday always.’

‘So it were,’ said Bruno.
‘Doos oo have treats on oor birthday, Mister Sir?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said.

‘When oo’re good, I suppose?’

‘Why, it is a sort of treat, being good, isn’t it?’
I said.

‘A sort of treat!’
Bruno repeated.
‘It’s a sort of punishment, I think!’

‘Oh, Bruno!’
Sylvie interrupted, almost sadly.
‘How can you?’

‘Well, but it is,’ Bruno persisted.
‘Why, look here, Mister Sir!
This is being good!’
And he sat bolt upright, and put on an absurdly solemn face.
‘First oo must sit up as straight as pokers—’

‘—as a poker,’ Sylvie corrected him.

‘—as straight as pokers,’ Bruno firmly repeated.
‘Then oo must clasp oor hands—so.
Then—"Why hasn’t oo brushed oor hair?

Go and brush it toreckly!"
Then—"Oh, Bruno, oo mustn’t dog’s-ear the daisies!"
Did oo learn oor spelling wiz daisies, Mister Sir?’

‘I want to hear about that Boy’s Birthday,’ I said.

Bruno returned to the story instantly.
‘Well, so this Boy said "Now it’s my Birthday!"
And so—I’m tired!’
he suddenly broke off, laying his head in Sylvie’s lap.
‘Sylvie knows it best.
Sylvie’s grown-upper than me.
Go on Sylvie!’

Sylvie patiently took up the thread of the story again.
‘So he said "Now it’s my Birthday.
Whatever shall I do to keep my Birthday?"
All good little Boys—’ (Sylvie turned away from Bruno, and made a great pretence of whispering to me) ‘—all good little Boys—Boys that learn their lessons quite perfect—they always keep their birthdays, you know.
So of course this little Boy kept his Birthday.’

‘Oo may call him Bruno, if oo like,’ the little fellow carelessly remarked.
‘It weren’t me, but it makes it more interesting.’

‘So Bruno said to himself "The properest thing to do is to have a Picnic, all by myself, on the top of the hill.
And I’ll take some Milk and some Bread, and some Apples: and first, and foremost, I want some Milk!"
So, first, and foremost, Bruno took a milk-pail—’

‘And he went and milkted the Cow!’
Bruno put in.

‘Yes,’ said Sylvie, meekly accepting the new verb.
‘And the Cow said "Moo!
What are you going to do with all that Milk?"

And Bruno said "Please’m, I want it for my Picnic."
And the Cow said "Moo!
I hope you wo’n’t boil any of it?"
And Bruno said "No, indeed I wo’n’t!
New Milk’s so nice and so warm, it wants no boiling!"‘

‘It doesn’t want no boiling,’ Bruno offered as an amended version.

‘So Bruno put the Milk in a bottle.
And then Bruno said "Now I want some Bread!"
So he went to the Oven, and he took out a delicious new Loaf.
And the Oven—’.

‘—ever so light and so puffy!’
Bruno impatiently corrected her.
‘Oo shouldn’t leave out so many words!’

Sylvie humbly apologized.
‘—a delicious new Loaf, ever so light and so puffy.
And the Oven said—’ Here Sylvie made a long pause.
‘Really I don’t know what an Oven begins with, when it wants to speak!’

Both children looked appealingly at me; but I could only say, helplessly, ‘I haven’t the least idea!
I never heard an Oven speak!’

For a minute or two we all sat silent; and then Bruno said, very softly, ‘Oven begins wiz "O".’

‘Good little boy!’
Sylvie exclaimed.
‘He does his spelling very nicely.
He’s cleverer than he knows!’
she added, aside, to me.

‘So the Oven said "O!
What are you going to do with all that Bread?"
And Bruno said "Please—" Is an Oven "Sir" or "‘m", would you say?’
She looked to me for a reply.

‘Both, I think,’ seemed to me the safest thing to say.

Sylvie adopted the suggestion instantly.
‘So Bruno said "Please, Sirm, I want it for my Picnic."
And the Oven said "O!
But I hope you wo’n’t toast any of it?"
And Bruno said, "No, indeed I wo’n’t!
New Bread’s so light and so puffy, it wants no toasting!"‘

‘It never doesn’t want no toasting,’ said Bruno.
‘I wiss oo wouldn’t say it so short!’

‘So Bruno put the Bread in the hamper.
Then Bruno said "Now I want some Apples!"
So he took the hamper, and he went to the Apple-Tree, and he picked some lovely ripe Apples.
And the Apple-Tree said—’ Here followed another long pause.