"Do wake up, you dear
old thing!" And he and Sylvie set to work, rolling the heavy head from
side to side, as if its connection with the shoulders was a matter of
no sort of importance.
And at last the Professor opened his eyes, and sat up, blinking at us
with eyes of utter bewilderment. "Would you have the kindness to
mention," he said, addressing me with his usual old-fashioned courtesy,
"whereabouts we are just now and who we are, beginning with me?"
I thought it best to begin with the children. "This is Sylvie. Sir;
and this is Bruno."
"Ah, yes! I know them well enough!" the old man murmured. "Its myself
I'm most anxious about. And perhaps you'll be good enough to mention,
at the same time, how I got here?"
"A harder problem occurs to me," I ventured to say: "and that is, how
you're to get back again."
"True, true!" the Professor replied. "That's the Problem, no doubt.
Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one.
Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very
distressing!" He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle,
"As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am--"
"Oo're the Professor!" Bruno shouted in his ear. "Didn't oo know that?
Oo've come from Outland! And it's ever so far away from here!"
The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy.
"Then there's no time to lose!" he exclaimed anxiously.
"I'll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets
that contain (apparently) water, if he'll be so kind as to direct us.
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