“I suppose He had when He was down here?”
“No.”
“No,” (with pity) “He didn’t have no peoples.” The pleasure of refusal was not to be resisted.
“Now do, Bobby, dear?”
“I san’t: say it again.”
“O! do do it.”
“I san’t: say it again.”
“Now, do.”
“I san’t,” shaking his head, as much as to say it’s very dreadful of me, but I shan’t. They could not explain to him that the glowing sunset was really so far away, he wanted to go to it. “It’s only just over the blackberry hedge.” Some one was teaching him that God loved little boys; “But does he love ladies too?”
As for papa he had to tell stories by the hour, day after day, and when he ceased and said he could not remember any more, Bevis frowned. “Rack your brains! rack your brains!” said he. A nightingale built in the hedge near the house, and all night long her voice echoed in the bed room. Listening one night as he was in bed he remarked, “The nightingale has two songs: first he sings ‘Sir-rup—sir-rup,’ and then he sings ‘Tweet.’”