Well, of course there were lots more things Little Dumpty used to do: I can't tell them all because it would take too long if I were to tell you all about his chalks and his paints and his stone bricks and his silver paper ball and his kite—why it would fill ever so many books, but I must tell you one thing more and that is about his card houses. He was better at that than at anything, and one night his Mother offered a prize of a cake of new emerald green paint if he could build eight houses. And he did. He tried ever so many times; and his Mother had to let him sit up a little later because just as he had got to the sixth storey safely, safely, after striving very much, the clock struck a quarter to eight. It would have been too bad to send him off then, when he longed to do it so. It quite made his fingers tremble to put on the last card. It was a good thing he succeeded that once, for he never did it again, and he did want the green paint so!
