I thought it best to begin with the children. “This is Sylvie. Sir; and this is Bruno.”
“Ah, yes! I know them well enough!” the old man murmured. “Its myself I'm most anxious about. And perhaps you'll be good enough to mention, at the same time, how I got here?”
“A harder problem occurs to me,” I ventured to say: “and that is, how you're to get back again.”
“True, true!” the Professor replied. “That's the Problem, no doubt. Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one. Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very distressing!” He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle, “As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am—”
“Oo're the Professor!” Bruno shouted in his ear. “Didn't oo know that? Oo've come from Outland! And it's ever so far away from here!”
The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy. “Then there's no time to lose!” he exclaimed anxiously. “I'll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets that contain (apparently) water, if he'll be so kind as to direct us. Guileless peasant!” he proceeded in a louder voice. “Would you tell us the way to Outland?”
The guileless peasant turned with a sheepish grin. “Hey?” was all he said.
“The way—to—Outland!” the Professor repeated.
The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. “Ah dunnot—”
“I ought to mention,” the Professor hastily put in, “that whatever you say will be used in evidence against you.”