"Why, you ca'n't walk a bit! You're lying quite flat on your back!
You don't understand these things."
"I can walk as well as you can," I repeated. And I tried my best to
walk a few steps: but the ground slipped away backwards, quite as fast
as I could walk, so that I made no progress at all. Sylvie laughed
again.
"There, I told you so! You've no idea how funny you look, moving your
feet about in the air, as if you were walking! Wait a bit. I'll ask
the Professor what we'd better do." And she knocked at his study-door.
The door opened, and the Professor looked out. "What's that crying I
heard just now?" he asked. "Is it a human animal?"
"It's a boy," Sylvie said.
"I'm afraid you've been teasing him?"
"No, indeed I haven't!" Sylvie said, very earnestly. "I never tease him!"
"Well, I must ask the Other Professor about it." He went back into the
study, and we heard him whispering "small human animal--says she hasn't
been teasing him--the kind that's called Boy--"
"Ask her which Boy," said a new voice. The Professor came out again.
"Which Boy is it that you haven't been teasing?"
Sylvie looked at me with twinkling eyes. "You dear old thing!" she
exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to kiss him, while he gravely stooped to
receive the salute. "How you do puzzle me! Why, there are several
boys I haven't been teasing!"
The Professor returned to his friend: and this time the voice said
"Tell her to bring them here--all of them!"
"I ca'n't, and I won't! "Sylvie exclaimed, the moment he reappeared.
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