"I don't agree with you," said the first speaker. "I should much prefer her being awake. She would enjoy the ride, and she is an intelligent child and would profit by our conversation."
"As you like," replied number two. "I must be off to fetch the boy. She will perhaps be awake by the time I return."
And then—just as I was on the point of starting up and telling them I was awake—came a sound of stamping and rustling, and a sort of whirr and a breath of cold air, which told me the swing door had been opened. And when I sat straight up and looked about me, lo and behold, there was only one lion to be seen—the stand of his brother was empty!
"I—please I am awake," I said rather timidly. "It was me you were talking about, wasn't it?"
"I—'it was I'—the verb to be takes the same case after it as before it," was the reply, much to my surprise and rather to my disgust. Who would have thought that the carved lions bothered about grammar!
"It was I, then," I repeated meekly. I did not want to give any offence to my new friend. "Please—I heard you saying something—something about going a ride. And where has the—the other Mr. Lion gone? I heard about—a boy."
"You heard correctly," my lion replied, and I knew somehow that he was smiling, or whatever lions do that matches smiling. "My brother has gone to fetch your brother—we planned it all some time ago—we shall meet on the sea-shore and travel together. But we should be starting. Can you climb up on to my back?"
"Oh yes," I said quite calmly, as if there was nothing the least out of the common in all this, "I'm sure I can."
"Catch hold of my mane," said the lion; "don't mind tugging, it won't hurt," and—not to my surprise, for nothing surprised me—I felt my hands full of soft silky hair, as the lion shook down his long wavy mane to help my ascent.
Nothing was easier. In another moment I was cosily settled on his back, which felt deliciously comfortable, and the mane seemed to tuck itself round me like a fleecy rug.