“No,” I said. “I didn’t know there was any Rule about it.”
“I think oo’ve got a right to eat me,” said the little fellow, looking up into my face with a winning smile. “But I’m not pruffickly sure. Oo’d better not do it wizout asking.”
It did indeed seem reasonable not to take so irrevocable a step as that, without due enquiry. “I’ll certainly ask about it, first,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know yet whether you would be worth eating!”
“I guess I’m deliciously good to eat,” Bruno remarked in a satisfied tone, as if it were something to be rather proud of.
“And what are you doing here, Bruno?”
“That’s not my name!” said my cunning little friend. “Don’t oo know my name’s ‘Oh Bruno!’? That’s what Sylvie always calls me, when I says mine lessons.”
“Well then, what are you doing here, oh Bruno?”
“Doing mine lessons, a-course!” With that roguish twinkle in his eye, that always came when he knew he was talking nonsense.
“Oh, that’s the way you do your lessons, is it? And do you remember them well?”
“Always can ’member mine lessons,” said Bruno. “It’s Sylvie’s lessons that’s so dreffully hard to ’member!” He frowned, as if in agonies of thought, and tapped his forehead with his knuckles. “I ca’n’t think enough to understand them!” he said despairingly. “It wants double thinking, I believe!”