I couldn't help smiling at this. “You know I sometimes wash my face, Bruno. The moon never does that.”
“Oh, doosn't she though!” cried Bruno; and he leant forwards and added in a solemn whisper, “The moon's face gets dirtier and dirtier every night, till it's black all across. And then, when it's dirty all over—so—” (he passed his hand across his own rosy cheeks as he spoke) “then she washes it.”
“Then it's all clean again, isn't it?”
“Not all in a moment,” said Bruno. “What a deal of teaching oo wants! She washes it little by little—only she begins at the other edge, oo know.”
By this time he was sitting quietly on the dead mouse with his arms folded, and the weeding wasn't getting on a bit: so I had to say “Work first, pleasure afterwards: no more talking till that bed's finished.”
CHAPTER 15. BRUNO'S REVENGE.
After that we had a few minutes of silence, while I sorted out the pebbles, and amused myself with watching Bruno's plan of gardening. It was quite a new plan to me: he always measured each bed before he weeded it, as if he was afraid the weeding would make it shrink; and once, when it came out longer than he wished, he set to work to thump the mouse with his little fist, crying out “There now! It's all gone wrong again! Why don't oo keep oor tail straight when I tell oo!”
“I'll tell you what I'll do,” Bruno said in a half-whisper, as we worked. “Oo like Fairies, don't oo?”
“Yes,” I said: “of course I do, or I shouldn't have come here. I should have gone to some place where there are no Fairies.”