{Image...A changed crocodile}
“Not quite all the way,” said Sylvie. “It couldn't, you know.”
“Ah, but it did, once!” Bruno cried triumphantly. “Oo weren't looking—but I watched it. And it walked on tippiety-toe, so as it wouldn't wake itself, 'cause it thought it were asleep. And it got both its paws on its tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead. And it walked a tiny little way down its nose! There now!”
This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child, help again!
“I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!” Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of her negatives.
“Oo don't know the reason why it did it!” Bruno scornfully retorted. “It had a welly good reason. I heerd it say 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?' So a course it did, oo know!”
“If that's a good reason, Bruno,” I said, “why shouldn't you get up that tree?”
“Shall, in a minute,” said Bruno: “soon as we've done talking. Only two peoples ca'n't talk comfably togevver, when one's getting up a tree, and the other isn't!”
It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while trees were being climbed, even if both the 'peoples' were doing it: but it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so I thought it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the machine that made things longer.
This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie. “It's like a mangle,” she said: “if things are put in, they get squoze—”