"It isn't," he replied, scowling. "But mother thinks it is."
"And she's right!" I said, wishing to rebuke him.
"She isn't!" (Slap, slap on the water.)
"She is!"
"She isn't!"
I felt that this conversation had all the elements of eternity, so, after delivering a last word in defence of the mothers of Kensington who release the navies of the Round Pond at exactly the right temperature, I left this scowling die-hard admiral to his melancholy.
* * *
Then, on a path under bare trees, I saw a fat, round fairy in salmon pink. Just standing, she was. I sat down to look at her. She advanced slowly. Among the bare trees someone called, "Joan, Joan!" She reminded me of a faun I saw once on the Rock of the Loreli on the Rhine. It advanced in just this same doubtful, solemn manner; one movement on my part would have sent it with beating heart into the thicket. So she advanced. I smiled; she smiled. Then she touched my coat with one finger, laughed, and—ran unsteadily away over the path under bare trees. Flirt!
I left Wonderland, and caught an omnibus to Piccadilly in a remarkably good temper....