This was a rather difficult idea to grasp. I tried a change of subject. “You’re nearly the first Fairy I ever saw. Have _you_ ever seen any people besides me?”
“Plenty!” said Bruno. “We see ’em when we walk in the road.”
“But they ca’n’t see _you_. How is it they never tread on you?”
“Ca’n’t _tread_ on us,” said Bruno, looking amused at my ignorance. “Why, suppose oo’re walking, here—so—” (making little marks on the ground) “and suppose there’s a Fairy—that’s me—walking _here_. Very well then, oo put one foot here, and one foot here, so oo doosn’t tread on the Fairy.”
This was all very well as an explanation, but it didn’t convince me. “Why shouldn’t I put one foot _on_ the Fairy?” I asked.
“I don’t know _why_,” the little fellow said in a thoughtful tone. “But I know oo _wouldn’t_. Nobody never walked on the top of a Fairy. Now I’ll tell oo what I’ll do, as oo’re so fond of Fairies. I’ll get oo an invitation to the Fairy-King’s dinner-party. I know one of the head-waiters.”
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 ca’n’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.
“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 every one that’s had such an honour as _that_!”