I couldn’t help laughing at this idea. “Do the waiters invite the guests?” I asked.
“Oh, not to sit down!” Bruno said. “But to wait at table. Oo’d like that, wouldn’t oo? To hand about plates, and so on.”
“Well, but that’s not so nice as sitting at the table, is it?”
“Of course it isn’t,” Bruno said, in a tone as if he rather pitied my ignorance; “but if oo’re not even Sir Anything, oo can’t expect to be allowed to sit at the table, oo know.”
I said, as meekly as I could, that I didn’t expect it, but it was the only way of going to a dinner-party that I really enjoyed. And Bruno tossed his head, and said, in a rather offended tone, that I might do as I pleased—there were many he knew that would give their ears to go.
“Have you ever been yourself, Bruno?”
“They invited me once, last week,” Bruno said, very gravely. “It was to wash up the soup-plates—no, the cheese-plates I mean—that was grand enough. And I waited at table. And I didn’t hardly make only one mistake.”
“What was it?” I said. “You needn’t mind telling me.”
“Only bringing scissors to cut the beef with,” Bruno said carelessly. “But the grandest thing of all was, I fetched the King a glass of cider!”
“That was grand!” I said, biting my lip to keep myself from laughing.
“Wasn’t it?” said Bruno, very earnestly. “Oo know it isn’t everyone that’s had such an honour as that!”
This set me thinking of the various queer things we call “an honour” in this world, but which, after all, haven’t a bit more honour in them than what Bruno enjoyed, when he took the King a glass of cider.
I don’t know how long I might not have dreamed on in this way, if Bruno hadn’t suddenly roused me. “Oh, come here quick!” he cried, in a state of the wildest excitement. “Catch hold of his other horn! I can’t hold him more than a minute!”
He was struggling desperately with a great snail, clinging to one of its horns, and nearly breaking his poor little back in his efforts to drag it over a blade of grass.
I saw we should have no more gardening if I let this sort of thing go on, so I quietly took the snail away, and put it on a bank where he couldn’t reach it. “We’ll hunt it afterwards, Bruno,” I said, “if you really want to catch it. But what’s the use of it when you’ve got it?”
“What’s the use of a fox when oo’ve got it?” said Bruno. “I know oo big things hunt foxes.”
I tried to think of some good reason why “big things” should hunt foxes, and he should not hunt snails, but none came into my head: so I said at last, “Well, I suppose one’s as good as the other. I’ll go snail-hunting myself some day.”
“I should think oo wouldn’t be so silly,” said Bruno, “as to go snail-hunting by oorself. Why, oo’d never get the snail along, if oo hadn’t somebody to hold on to his other horn!”
“Of course I shan’t go alone,” I said, quite gravely. “By the way, is that the best kind to hunt, or do you recommend the ones without shells?”
“Oh, no, we never hunt the ones without shells,” Bruno said, with a little shudder at the thought of it. “They’re always so cross about it; and then, if oo tumbles over them, they’re ever so sticky!”
By this time we had nearly finished the garden. I had fetched some violets, and Bruno was just helping me to put in the last, when he suddenly stopped and said “I’m tired.”
“Rest then,” I said: “I can go on without you, quite well.”
Bruno needed no second invitation: he at once began arranging the dead mouse as a kind of sofa. “And I’ll sing oo a little song,” he said, as he rolled it about.
“Do,” said I: “I like songs very much.”
“Which song will oo choose?” Bruno said, as he dragged the mouse into a place where he could get a good view of me. “ ‘Ting, ting, ting’ is the nicest.”
There was no resisting such a strong hint as this: however, I pretended to think about it for a moment, and then said “Well, I like ‘Ting, ting, ting,’ best of all.”
“That shows oo’re a good judge of music,” Bruno said, with a pleased look. “How many harebells would oo like?” And he put his thumb into his mouth to help me to consider.
As there was only one cluster of harebells within easy reach, I said very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked it and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most delicious delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard flower-music before—I don’t think one can, unless one’s in the “eerie” state—and I don’t know quite how to give you an idea of what it was like, except by saying that it sounded like a peal of bells a thousand miles off. When he had satisfied himself that the flowers were in tune, he seated himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really comfortable anywhere else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he began. By the way, the tune was rather a curious one, and you might like to try it for yourself, so here are the notes.
“Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies:
The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!
Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake
The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!
Welcoming our
