eepy songs?'

'Your people sing you sleepy songs,' said Lucy. 'What a pity they can't
sing to you all the time.'

'You have a sympathetic nature,' said the Great Sloth, and it came out
and leaned on the pillar of its door and looked at her with sleepy
interest. It was enormous, as big as a young elephant, and it walked on
its hind legs like a gorilla. It was very black indeed.

'It _is_ a pity,' it said; 'but they say they cannot live without
drinking, so they waste their time in drawing water from the wells.'

'Wouldn't it be nice,' said Lucy, 'if you had a machine for drawing
water. Then they could sing to you all day--if they chose.'

'If _I_ chose,' said the Great Sloth, yawning like a hippopotamus. 'I am
sleepy. Go!'

'No,' said Lucy, and it was so long since the Great Sloth had heard that
word that the shock of the sound almost killed its sleepiness.

'_What_ did you say?' it asked, as if it could not believe its large
ears.

'I said "No,"' said Lucy. 'I mean that you are so great and grand you
have only to wish for anything and you get it.'

'Is that so?' said the Great Sloth dreamily and like an American.

'Yes,' said Lucy with firmness. 'You just say, "I wish I had a machine
to draw up water for eight hours a day." That's the proper length for a
working day. Father says so.'

'Say it all again, and slower,' said the creature. 'I didn't quite catch
what you said.'

Lucy repeated the words.

'If that's all. . . .' said the Great Sloth; 'now say it again, very
slowly indeed.'

Lucy did so and the Great Sloth repeated after her:

'I wish I had a machine to draw up water for eight hours a day.'

'Don't,' it said angrily, looking back over its shoulder into the
feather-bedded room, 'don't, I say. Where are you shoving to? Who are
you? What are you doing in my room? Come out of it.'

Something did come out of the room, pushing the Great Sloth away from
the door. And what came out was the vast feather-bed in enormous rolls
and swellings and bulges. It was being pushed out by something so big
and strong that it was stronger that the Great Sloth itself, and pushed
that mountain of lazy sloth-flesh half across its own inner courtyard.
Lucy retreated before its advancing bulk and its extreme rage.

'Push me out of my own feather-bedroom, would it?' said the Sloth, now
hardly sleepy at all. 'You wait till I get hold of it, whatever it is.'

The whole of the feather-bed was out in the courtyard now, an