“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.
“_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?”
“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!”