With a ferocious glare at the children around him, he reached in a hand, and Alice heard a sharp click. The bird stopped singing in the middle of a note. Then the wooden man lifted the little creature from its perch and brought it forth with as little concern as if it were made of wood, too.
“Oh!” cried Alice, in distress. “You mustn’t hurt the bird! It wasn’t its fault that somebody monkeyed with the key.”
The word monkeyed puzzled her, but she supposed it was all right, since that was what the wooden man had said.
But the wooden man only laughed and held out the bird for her inspection. Then Alice saw that it was not a real bird at all, but was made of thin metal so skilfully painted as to look real.
“You forget this is Toyland,” grinned the wooden man. “This bird is no more real than I am, than these children are—than you are!”
“Ain’t I real?” asked Alice, in alarm. Quickly correcting herself, she said: “Am I not real?”
“Real enough,” said the wooden man, casually. “A real nuisance,” he muttered, under his breath; but fortunately Alice did not hear this rude remark. He continued, more pleasantly: “Oh, the bird is real enough, too. But it’s been wound up too tightly. It doesn’t know what it is singing, or why it is singing. It lacks a soul.”
This remark was too deep for Alice, so she made no reply. After a minute, she asked:
“Aren’t there any more animals?”
“Birds aren’t animals,” sneered the wooden man, and then he was very much ashamed of himself. “I beg your pardon,” he said, contritely. “I had forgotten you are only thirteen.” (He shuddered as he mentioned the sinister number.) “Well, yes, there is the Performing Pony, and the Whistling Toad, and the Talking Dog, and the Teddy Bear, and the Laughing Hyena, and the Sorrowful Snake, and the Ingenious Ibex, and the Loquacious Lynx, and—Oh, we have quite a menagerie!”