Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/144

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SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED.

"I get very cross," she frankly admitted: "and I want to throw things about the room!"

"When that happens to——to the people I have visited, they never act so. By a short and simple process——which I cannot explain to you——they store up the useless hours: and, on some other occasion, when they happen to need extra time, they get them out again."

The Earl was listening with a slightly incredulous smile. "Why cannot you explain the process?" he enquired.

Mein Herr was ready with a quite unanswerable reason. "Because you have no words, in your language, to convey the ideas which are needed. I could explain it in——in——but you would not understand it!"

"No indeed!" said Lady Muriel, graciously dispensing with the name of the unknown language. I never learnt it——at least, not to speak it fluently, you know. Please tell us some more wonderful things!"

"They run their railway-trains without any engines——nothing is needed but machinery to stop them with. Is that wonderful enough, Miladi?"