‘Yes,’ said Elsie, ‘of course I do.’
‘Well … I hardly like to tell you the story,’ said the Crow, ‘but it’s a long time ago, and I hope you won’t think the worse of us—because we’re really very sorry.’
‘If you’re really sorry,’ said Elsie primly, ‘of course it’s all right.’
‘Unfortunately it isn’t,’ said the Crow. ‘You see the great square down there?’
Elsie looked down on a square of green trees, broken a little towards the middle.
‘Well, that’s where the … where it is—what you’ve got to tame, you know.’
‘But what did you do that was wrong?’
‘We were unkind,’ said the Crow slowly, ‘and unjust, and ungenerous. We had servants and workpeople doing everything for us; we had nothing to do but be kind. And we weren’t.’
‘Dear me,’ said Elsie feebly.
‘We had several warnings,’ said the Crow. ‘There was an old parchment, and it said just how you ought to behave and all that. But we didn’t care what it said. I was Court Magician as well as Prime Minister, and I ought to have known better, but I didn’t. We all wore frock-coats and high hats then,’ he added sadly.