“Well said, Little Dumpling! I must admit that my costume is rather meagre.”
“Alice, you ought to be able to explain it if anybody can,—how do people come to be ‘privileged characters,’ as they are called? You do whatever you please, and cut all sorts of crazy antics, and no one ever thinks you foolish, or even undignified; and then, you say whatever you think, yet no one can get angry with you. You tell me, to my face, that I am destitute of common sense—”
“Totally, that’s a fact.”
“And yet I am not the least bit vexed?”
“The simplest thing imaginable. Listen, and I will explain. As to the crazy antics, as you are pleased to term my joyous, lamb-like friskings, of course you cannot expect me to have the face to stand up here and say that they do not offend, because of the bewitching, inborn grace which characterizes my every movement?”
“Naturally.”
“Of course. And you will naturally pardon my not alluding to what I can’t help.”
“Poor thing!”
“Of course. I was born so; and that’s the end of that. Now, as to your not being hurt by my telling you that plain truth about yourself—”
“My destitution as regards—”