CHAPTER XVI.

A CHANGED CROCODILE.

The Marvellous--the Mysterious--had quite passed out of my life for the moment: and the Common-place reigned supreme. I turned in the direction of the Earl's house, as it was now 'the witching hour' of five, and I knew I should find them ready for a cup of tea and a quiet chat.

Lady Muriel and her father gave me a delightfully warm welcome. They were not of the folk we meet in fashionable drawing-rooms--who conceal all such feelings as they may chance to possess beneath the impenetrable mask of a conventional placidity. 'The Man with the Iron Mask' was, no doubt, a rarity and a marvel in his own age: in modern London no one would turn his head to give him a second look! No, these were _real_ people. When they _looked_ pleased, it meant that they _were_ pleased: and when Lady Muriel said, with a bright smile, "I'm _very_ glad to see you again!", I knew that it was _true_.

Still I did not venture to disobey the injunctions--crazy as I felt them to be--of the love-sick young Doctor, by so much as alluding to his existence: and it was only after they had given me full details of a projected picnic, to which they invited me, that Lady Muriel exclaimed, almost as an after-thought, "and _do_, if you can, bring Doctor Forester with you! I'm sure a day in the country would do him good. I'm afraid he studies too much----"

It was 'on the tip of my tongue' to quote the words "His only books are woman's looks!" but I checked myself just in time--with something of the feeling of one who has crossed a street, and has been all but run over by a passing 'Hansom.'

"--and I think he has too lonely a life," she went on, with a gentle earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. "_Do_ get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail--there is so much pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four."

"Oh, _I'll_ persuade him to come!" I said with confidence--thinking "it would take all _my_ powers of persuasion to keep him away!"

The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would induce him to call--either with me or without me--on the Earl and his daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to "wear out his welcome," he said: they had "seen enough of him for one while": and, when at last the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go separately to the house--my intention being to arrive some time after him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting.

With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): "and if I could only manage to lose my way a bit," I thought to myself, "that would suit me capitally!"

In this I succeeded better, and sooner, than I had ventured to hope for. The path through the wood had been made familiar to me, by many a solitary stroll, in my former visit to Elveston; and how I could have so suddenly and so entirely lost it--even though I _was_ so engrossed in thinking of Arthur and his lady-love that I heeded little else--was a mystery to me. "And this open place," I said to myself, "seems to have some memory about it I cannot distinctly recall--surely it is the very spot where I saw those Fairy-Children! But I hope there are no snakes about!" I mused aloud, taking my seat on a fallen tree. "I certainly do _not_ like snakes--and I don't suppose _Bruno_ likes them, either!"

"No, he _doesn't_ like them!" said a demure little voice at my side. "He's not _afraid_ of them, you know. But he doesn't _like_ them. He says they're too waggly!"

Words fail me to describe the beauty of the little group--couched on a patch of moss, on the trunk of the fallen tree, that met my eager gaze: Sylvie reclining with her elbow buried in the moss, and her rosy cheek resting in the palm of her hand, and Bruno stretched at her feet with his head in her lap.

"Too waggly?" was all I could say in so sudden an emergency.

"I'm not praticular," Bruno said, carelessly: "but I _do_ like straight animals best----"

"But you like a dog when it wags its tail," Sylvie interrupted. "You _know_ you do, Bruno!"

"But there's more of a dog, isn't there, Mister Sir?" Bruno appealed to me. "_You_ wouldn't like to have a dog if it hadn't got nuffin but a head and a tail?"

I admitted that a dog of that kind would be uninteresting.

"There _isn't_ such a dog as that," Sylvie thoughtfully remarked.

"But there _would_ be," cried Bruno, "if the Professor shortened it up for us!"

"Shortened it up?" I said. "That's something new. How does he do it?"

"He's got a curious machine----" Sylvie was beginning to explain.

"A _welly_ curious machine," Bruno broke in, not at all willing to have the story thus taken out of his mouth, "and if oo puts in--somefinoruvver--at _one_ end, oo know--and he turns the handle--and it comes out at the uvver end, oh, ever so short!"

"As short as short!" Sylvie echoed.

"And one day--when we was in Outland, oo know--before we came to Fairyland--me and Sylvie took him a big Crocodile. And he shortened it up for us. And it _did_ look so funny! And it kept looking round, and saying 'wherever _is_ the rest of me got to?' And then its eyes looked unhappy----"

"Not _both_ its eyes," Sylvie interrupted.

"Course not!" said the little fellow. "Only the eye that _couldn't_ see wherever the rest of it had got to. But the eye that _could_ see wherever----"

"How short _was_ the crocodile?" I asked, as the story was getting a little complicated.

"Half as short again as when we caught it--_so_ long," said Bruno, spreading out his arms to their full stretch.

I tried to calculate what this would come to, but it was too hard for me. Please make it out for me, dear Child who reads this!

"But you didn't leave the poor thing so short as that, did you?"

"Well, no. Sylvie and me took it back again and we got it stretched to--to--how much was it, Sylvie?"

"Two times and a half, and a little bit more," said Sylvie.

"It wouldn't like that better than the other way, I'm afraid?"

"Oh, but it did though!" Bruno put in eagerly. "It _were_ proud of its new tail! Oo never saw a Crocodile so proud! Why, it could go round and walk on the top of its tail, and along its back, all the way to its head!"

"Not _quite_ all the way," said Sylvie. "It couldn't, you know."

"Ah, but it _did_, once!" Bruno cried triumphantly. "Oo weren't looking--but _I_ watched it. And it walked on tipplety-toe, so as it wouldn't wake itself, 'cause it thought it were asleep. And it got both its paws on its tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead. And it walked a tiny little way down its nose! There now!"

This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child, help again!

"I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!" Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of her negatives.

"Oo don't know the _reason_ why it did it!" Bruno scornfully retorted. "It had a welly good reason. I _heerd_ it say 'Why _shouldn't_ I walk on my own forehead?' So a course it _did_, oo know!"

"If _that's_ a good reason, Bruno," I said, "why shouldn't _you_ get up that tree?"

"_Shall_, in a minute," said Bruno: "soon as we've done talking. Only two peoples _ca'n't_ talk comfably togevver, when one's getting up a tree, and the other isn't!"

It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while trees were being climbed, even if _both_ the 'peoples' were doing it: but it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so I thought it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the machine that made things _longer_.

This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie. "It's like a mangle," she said: "if things are put in, they get squoze----"

"Squeezeled!" Bruno interrupted.

"Yes." Sylvie accepted the correction, but did not attempt to pronounce the word, which was evidently new to her. "They get--like that--and they come out, oh, ever so long!"

"Once," Bruno began again, "Sylvie and me writed----"

"Wrote!" Sylvie whispered.

"Well, we _wroted_ a Nursery-Song, and the Professor mangled it longer for us. It were '_There was a little Man, And he had a little gun, And the bullets----_'"

"I know the rest," I interrupted. "But would you say it _long_--I mean the way that it came _out_ of the mangle?"

"We'll get the Professor to _sing_ it for you," said Sylvie. "It would spoil it to _say_ it."

"I would like to meet the Professor," I said. "And I would like to take you all with me, to see some friends of mine, that live near here. Would you like to come?"

"I don't think the _Professor_ would like to come," said Sylvie. "He's _very_ shy. But _we'd_ like it very much. Only we'd better not come _this_ size, you know."

The difficulty had occurred to me already: and I had felt that perhaps there _would_ be a slight awkwardness in introducing two such tiny friends into Society. "What size will you be?" I enquired.

"We'd better come as--common _children_," Sylvie thoughtfully replied. "That's the easiest size to manage."

"Could you come to-day?" I said, thinking "then we could have you at the picnic!"

Sylvie considered a little. "Not _to-day_," she replied. "We haven't got the things ready. We'll come on--Tuesday next, if you like. And now, _really_, Bruno, you must come and do your lessons."

"I _wiss_ oo wouldn't say '_really_ Bruno!'" the little fellow pleaded, with pouting lips that made him look prettier than ever. "It _always_ shows there's something horrid coming! And I won't kiss you, if you're so unkind."

"Ah, but you _have_ kissed me!" Sylvie exclaimed in merry triumph.

"Well then, I'll _un_kiss you!" And he threw his arms round her neck for this novel, but apparently not _very_ painful, operation.

"It's _very_ like _kissing_!" Sylvie remarked, as soon as her lips were again free for speech.

"Oo don't know _nuffin_ about it! It were just the _conkery_!" Bruno replied with much severity, as he marched away.

Sylvie turned her laughing face to me. "Shall we come on Tuesday?" she said.

"Very well," I said: "let it be Tuesday next. But where _is_ the Professor? Did he come with you to Fairyland?"

"No," said Sylvie. "But he promised he'd come and see us, _some_ day. He's getting his Lecture ready. So he has to stay at home."

"At home?" I said dreamily, not feeling quite sure what she had said.

"Yes, Sir. His Lordship and Lady Muriel _are_ at home. Please to walk this way."