The fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the
trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the
flowers to pieces as fast as he got them out of the ground. After a few
minutes I tried again:

"_Please_ tell me what your name is."

"Bruno," the little fellow answered, very readily. "Why didn't you say
'please' before?"

"That's something like what we used to be taught in the nursery," I
thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred
and fifty of them) to the time when I used to be a little child myself.
And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him, "Aren't you one of
the fairies that teach children to be good?"

"Well, we have to do that sometimes," said Bruno, "and a dreadful
bother it is."

As he said this, he savagely tore a heart's-ease in two, and trampled
on the pieces.

"What _are_ you doing there, Bruno?" I said.

"Spoiling Sylvie's garden," was all the answer Bruno would give at
first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to
himself, "The nasty c'oss thing--wouldn't let me go and play this
morning, though I wanted to ever so much--said I must finish my lessons
first--lessons, indeed! I'll vex her finely, though!"