“Pleasure first and business afterwards” seemed to be the motto of these tiny folk, so many hugs and kisses had to be interchanged before anything else could be done.
“Now, Bruno,” Sylvie said reproachfully, “didn’t I tell you you were to go on with your lessons, unless you heard to the contrary?”
“But I _did_ heard to the contrary!” Bruno insisted, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“It were a sort of noise in the air,” said Bruno: “a sort of a scrambling noise. Didn’t _oo_ hear it, Mister Sir?”
“Well, anyhow, you needn’t go to _sleep_ over them, you lazy-lazy!” For Bruno had curled himself up, on the largest ‘lesson,’ and was arranging another as a pillow.
“I _wasn’t_ asleep!” said Bruno, in a deeply-injured tone. “When I shuts mine eyes, it’s to show that I’m _awake_!”
“I’ve learned a little tiny bit,” said Bruno, modestly, being evidently afraid of overstating his achievement. “_Ca’n’t_ learn no more!”
“Oh Bruno! You know you _can_, if you like.”
“Course I can, if I _like_,” the pale student replied; “but I ca’n’t if I _don’t_ like!”
Sylvie had a way—which I could not too highly admire—of evading Bruno’s logical perplexities by suddenly striking into a new line of thought; and this masterly stratagem she now adopted.
“Did oo know, Mister Sir,” Bruno thoughtfully remarked, “that Sylvie ca’n’t count? Whenever she says ‘I must say _one_ thing,’ I _know_ quite well she’ll say _two_ things! And she always doos.”
“Two heads are better than one, Bruno,” I said, but with no very distinct idea as to what I meant by it.
“I shouldn’t mind having two _heads_,” Bruno said softly to himself: “one head to eat mine dinner, and one head to argue wiz Sylvie—doos oo think oo’d look prettier if oo’d got _two_ heads, Mister Sir?”
The case did not, I assured him, admit of a doubt.
“The reason why Sylvie’s so cross——” Bruno went on very seriously, almost sadly.
Sylvie’s eyes grew large and round with surprise at this new line of enquiry—her rosy face being perfectly radiant with good humour. But she said nothing.
“Wouldn’t it be better to tell me after the lessons are over?” I suggested.
“Very well,” Bruno said with a resigned air: “only she wo’n’t be cross then.”
“There’s only three lessons to do,” said Sylvie. “Spelling, and Geography, and Singing.”