"I think that's a queer nose," said Johnnie Bushytail, frisking his tail.
"Well, a bottle of perfumery smells, doesn't it?" asked Alice, "and that's what a nose is especially for; smells."
"Indeed it is!" cried Humpty Dumpty in his jolly voice, speaking through the tulips. "I'm all made now. I only hope—" And then he suddenly turned pale, for he nearly fell off the wall. "Has any one any powder?" he asked. "I think I'd like to clean my teeth."
"I have some talcum," spoke Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, coming along just then.
"That will do," spoke Humpty Dumpty. "It will be just fine." And with a brush made from the end of a soft fern he began to clean his teeth with the talcum powder which Lulu gave him.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a loud noise, a puff of smoke, and Humpty Dumpty, the egg man, was seen sailing off through the air like a big white balloon.
"Well, this is better than falling off the wall!" he cried in a faint voice.
"Oh, my! What happened?" asked Sammie Littletail, trying to make his pink nose twinkle as Uncle Wiggily did his.
"Humpty Dumpty was blown up instead of falling down," said Alice. "I guess your talcum powder was too strong for him, Lulu, my dear. And it being the Fourth of July tomorrow, Humpty wanted to give us some fireworks. So he's gone, but I'm glad he wasn't broken, for if he was the way the book has it, when he falls off the wall, all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put him together again. Maybe it is best as it is."
But, after a while Humpty Dumpty sailed back again, not hurt a bit, and he sat on the wall as well as ever.