“Clang! clang!” went a bell. The untidy children rushed about, looking here, looking there, more furiously than ever, and as they searched they sang faster and faster:
“‘Where is it? where is it? where is it?
Where can it have got to?’ we say.
Only just turn your head, and you miss it.
Where’s this thing, and that thing, and t’other?
Oh, dear, what a terrible bother
That things should be always astray.
Where is it? where is it? we say.
They were all of them here just this minute,
Yet nothing will keep in its place,