Where every one is a sleepy-head,
And the onlywhere to go is Bed—
Where all of us like to be.”
“Very true,” said the Bear, disconsolately, when the song was done. “But what’s the use of going to bed if you can’t sleep? You don’t know what it is”—appealing to Buddie—“to lie awake all night and listen to the servants snoring and you unable to get a wink.”
Buddie certainly had no personal knowledge of such an unpleasant state of affairs. She slept “like a top” from dark to daybreak, and did not even hear Colonel, weary from the day’s play, snoring under the kitchen stove. Still, she thought she ought to make some reply to the Bear’s appeal for sympathy; so she said:
“Do you keep servants?”
“Six,” answered the Bear; “and a worthless lot they are.”
“You’ve got something on your mind; that’s why you can’t sleep,” said the Donkey, with an air that implied, “You needn’t try to deceive me.”
“Very true,” said the Bear.
“Then the best thing for you to do is to confess,” said the Donkey, decisively. “A clear conscience is the best sleeping powder. Come, out with it! You’ve been stealing sheep.”