“Oh, Bruno!” cried Sylvie. “Why, that’s the way cats show they’re pleased!”
Bruno looked doubtful. “It’s not a good way,” he objected. “Oo wouldn’t say I were pleased, if I made that noise in my throat!”
“What a singular boy!” the Lord Chancellor whispered to himself: but Bruno had caught the words.
“What do it mean to say ‘a singular boy’?” he whispered to Sylvie.
“It means one boy,” Sylvie whispered in return. “And plural means two or three.”
“Then I’s welly glad I is a singular boy!” Bruno said with great emphasis. “It would be horrid to be two or three boys! P’raps they wouldn’t play with me!”
“Why should they?” said the Other Professor, suddenly waking up out of a deep reverie. “They might be asleep, you know.”
“Couldn’t, if I was awake,” Bruno said cunningly.
“Oh, but they might indeed!” the Other Professor protested. “Boys don’t all go to sleep at once, you know. So these boys—but who are you talking about?”
“He never remembers to ask that first!” the Professor whispered to the children.