nearly as broad as they were long! Which shows
that even hygienic principles may be pushed too far.

The first meeting with Miss Paine took place in 1876. When Lewis
Carroll returned to Christ Church he sent her a copy of "The Hunting
of the Snark," with the following acrostic written in the fly-leaf:--

'A re you deaf, Father William?' the young man said,
'D id you hear what I told you just now?
E xcuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head
L ike a blundering, sleepy old cow!
A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,
I s my friend, so I beg to remark:
D o you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down
E ntitled "The Hunt of the Snark?"'

'P ack it up in brown paper!' the old man cried,
'A nd seal it with olive-and-dove.
I command you to do it!' he added with pride,
'N or forget, my good fellow, to send her beside
E aster Greetings, and give her my love.'

This was followed by a letter, dated June 7, 1876:--

My dear Adelaide,--Did you try if the letters at the
beginnings of the lines about Father William would spell
anything? Sometimes it happens that you can spell out words
that way, which is very curious.

I wish you could have heard him when he shouted out "Pack it
up in brown paper!" It quite shook the house. And he threw
one of his shoes at his son's head (just to make him attend,
you know), but it missed him.

He was glad to hear you had got the book safe, but his eyes
filled with tears as he said, "I sent _her_ my love,
but she never--" he couldn't say any more, his mouth was so
full of bones (he was just finishing a roast goose).

Another letter to Miss Paine is very characteristic of his quaint humour:--

Christ Church, Oxford, _March_ 8, 1880.

My dear Ada,--(Isn't that your short name? "Adelaide" is all
very well, but you see when one's _dreadfully_ busy one
hasn't time to write such long words--particularly when it
takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it--and even
then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has
spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another
room, at the top of a high bookcase--where it has been for
months and months, and has got all covered with dust--so
one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke
oneself in dusting it--and when one _has_ made out at
last which is dictio