Matilda took her bottled beer
And poured it on the floor.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
And that was all I saw.’
‘Poor thing!’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Such a brief and mysterious career. Now you may open your eyes.’
David did so, and found himself in a large room, with all the furniture covered up as if the family was away. The butler was still standing on his head, squinting horribly at David’s card, and muttering to himself, ‘He can’t be both, and he may be neither. He may be either, but he can’t be both.’ In the middle of the room was a big round seat, covered with ribands which were still blowing about in the wind, and on it was seated a little old lady with horn spectacles, eating curds and whey out of a bowl that she held on her knees.
‘Come and sit on the tuffet at once,’ she said, ‘and then we’ll pretend that there isn’t room for the spider. Won’t that be a good joke? I like a bit of chaff with my spider. I expect the tuffet will bear, won’t it? But I can’t promise you any curds.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said David politely, ‘but I don’t like curds.’
‘No more do I,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘I knew we should agree.’
‘Then why do you eat them?’ asked David.