less puzzled as to how Cock Robin had been moved from the stony place to
the soft earth, and who dug his grave. I could not ask Nurse about it,
for I should have had to tell her I had been out, and I could not have
trusted Mrs. Jones either; but Godfather Gilpin never tells tales of me,
and he knows everything, so I went to him.

The more I thought of it the more I saw that the only way was to tell
him everything; for if you only tell parts of things you sometimes find
yourself telling lies before you know where you are. So I put on my
cloak and my mask, and took the shovel and bier into the study, and sat
down on the little foot-stool I always wait on when Godfather Gilpin is
in the middle of reading, and keeps his head down to show that he does
not want to be disturbed.

When he shut up his book and looked at me he burst out laughing. I meant
to have asked him why, but I was so busy afterwards I forgot. I suppose
it was the nose, for it had got rather broken when I fell down as I was
burying the old drake that Neptune killed.

But he was very kind to me, and I told him all about my being a Brother
of Pity, and how I had wanted to bury a robin, and how I had found one,
and how he had frightened me by burying himself.

"Some other Brother of Pity must have found him," said my godfather,
still laughing. "And he must have got Jack the Giant-killer's cloak of
darkness for _his_ dress, so that you did not see him."

"There was nobody there," I earnestly answered, shaking my mask as I
thought of the still, lonely moonlight. "Nothing but two beetles, and I
said if they would take care of him they might be Brothers of Pity."