'They'll be better to-morrow,' Alice said, 'they're only shy.'

Dicky said shy was all very well, but you needn't behave like a
perfect idiot.

'They're frightened. You see we're all strange to them,' Dora
said.

'We're not wild beasts or Indians; we shan't eat them. What have
they got to be frightened of?' Dicky said this.

Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess
who'd been turned into white rabbits, and their bodies had got
changed back but not their insides.

But Oswald told him to dry up.

'It's no use making things up about them,' he said. 'The thing is:
what are we going to DO? We can't have our holidays spoiled by
these snivelling kids.'

'No,' Alice said, 'but they can't possibly go on snivelling for
ever. Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone
aunt. She's enough to make anyone snivel.'

'All the same,' said Oswald, 'we jolly well aren't going to have
another day like today. We must do something to rouse them from
their snivelling leth--what's its name?--something sudden and--what
is it?--decisive.'