“Wasn't the Crocodile running?” Sylvie enquired. She appealed to me. “Crocodiles do run, don't they?”
I suggested “crawling” as the proper word.
“He wasn't running,” said Bruno, “and he wasn't crawling. He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever so high in the air—”
“What did he do that for?” said Sylvie.
“'cause he hadn't got a toofache!” said Bruno. “Ca'n't oo make out nuffin wizout I 'splain it? Why, if he'd had a toofache, a course he'd have held his head down—like this—and he'd have put a lot of warm blankets round it!”
“If he'd had any blankets,” Sylvie argued.
“Course he had blankets!” retorted her brother. “Doos oo think Crocodiles goes walks wizout blankets? And he frowned with his eyebrows. And the Goat was welly flightened at his eyebrows!”
“I'd never be afraid of eyebrows!” exclaimed Sylvie.
“I should think oo would, though, if they'd got a Crocodile fastened to them, like these had! And so the Man jamp, and he jamp, and at last he got right out of the hole.”
Sylvie gave another little gasp: this rapid dodging about among the characters of the Story had taken away her breath.