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data/lib/texts/carroll/alice-in-wonderland.txt

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+# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
+
+# ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
+
+# Lewis Carroll
+
+# THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0
+
+
+
+
+# CHAPTER I
+
+# Down the Rabbit-Hole
+
+
+  Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
+on the bank, and of having nothing to do:  once or twice she had
+peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
+pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
+thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
+
+  So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could,
+for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether
+the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble
+of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White
+Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
+
+  There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice
+think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to
+itself, `Oh dear!  Oh dear!  I shall be late!'  (when she thought
+it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have
+wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural);
+but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-
+POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to
+her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never
+before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to
+take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the
+field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop
+down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
+
+  In another moment down went Alice after it, never once
+considering how in the world she was to get out again.
+
+  The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way,
+and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a
+moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself
+falling down a very deep well.
+
+  Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
+had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
+wonder what was going to happen next.  First, she tried to look
+down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
+see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
+noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
+here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.  She
+took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
+labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
+was empty:  she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
+somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
+fell past it.
+
+  `Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I
+shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!  How brave they'll
+all think me at home!  Why, I wouldn't say anything about it,
+even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely
+true.)
+
+  Down, down, down.  Would the fall NEVER come to an end!  `I
+wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud.
+`I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth.  Let
+me see:  that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for,
+you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her
+lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good
+opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to
+listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes,
+that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude
+or Longitude I've got to?'  (Alice had no idea what Latitude was,
+or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to
+say.)
+
+  Presently she began again.  `I wonder if I shall fall right
+THROUGH the earth!  How funny it'll seem to come out among the
+people that walk with their heads downward!  The Antipathies, I
+think--' (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this
+time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) `--but I shall
+have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
+Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried
+to curtsey as she spoke--fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling
+through the air!  Do you think you could manage it?)  `And what
+an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking!  No, it'll
+never do to ask:  perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
+
+  Down, down, down.  There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon
+began talking again.  `Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I
+should think!'  (Dinah was the cat.)  `I hope they'll remember
+her saucer of milk at tea-time.  Dinah my dear!  I wish you were
+down here with me!  There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but
+you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know.
+But do cats eat bats, I wonder?'  And here Alice began to get
+rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of
+way, `Do cats eat bats?  Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do
+bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
+question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.  She felt
+that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she
+was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
+earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:  did you ever eat a
+bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
+sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
+
+  Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a
+moment:  she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her
+was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
+sight, hurrying down it.  There was not a moment to be lost:
+away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it
+say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
+it's getting!'  She was close behind it when she turned the
+corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen:  she found
+herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
+hanging from the roof.
+
+  There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked;
+and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the
+other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
+wondering how she was ever to get out again.
+
+  Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
+solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key,
+and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the
+doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or
+the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of
+them.  However, on the second time round, she came upon a low
+curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little
+door about fifteen inches high:  she tried the little golden key
+in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
+
+  Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small
+passage, not much larger than a rat-hole:  she knelt down and
+looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
+How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about
+among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
+she could not even get her head through the doorway; `and even if
+my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of
+very little use without my shoulders.  Oh, how I wish
+I could shut up like a telescope!  I think I could, if I only
+know how to begin.'  For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
+had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
+things indeed were really impossible.
+
+  There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she
+went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on
+it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like
+telescopes:  this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which
+certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck
+of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME'
+beautifully printed on it in large letters.
+
+  It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little
+Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry.  `No, I'll look
+first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not';
+for she had read several nice little histories about children who
+had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant
+things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules
+their friends had taught them:  such as, that a red-hot poker
+will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your
+finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
+never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
+`poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or
+later.
+
+  However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured
+to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort
+of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
+turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished
+it off.
+
+#      *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#          *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#      *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up
+like a telescope.'
+
+  And so it was indeed:  she was now only ten inches high, and
+her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right
+size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
+First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was
+going to shrink any further:  she felt a little nervous about
+this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my
+going out altogether, like a candle.  I wonder what I should be
+like then?'  And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is
+like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember
+ever having seen such a thing.
+
+  After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided
+on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice!
+when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the
+little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it,
+she found she could not possibly reach it:  she could see it
+quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb
+up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery;
+and when she had tired herself out with trying,
+the poor little thing sat down and cried.
+
+  `Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to
+herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!'
+She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very
+seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so
+severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered
+trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game
+of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious
+child was very fond of pretending to be two people.  `But it's no
+use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people!  Why,
+there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable
+person!'
+
+  Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under
+the table:  she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on
+which the words `EAT ME' were beautifully marked in currants.
+`Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, `and if it makes me grow larger,
+I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep
+under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I
+don't care which happens!'
+
+  She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which
+way?  Which way?', holding her hand on the top of her head to
+feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to
+find that she remained the same size:  to be sure, this generally
+happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the
+way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen,
+that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the
+common way.
+
+  So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.
+
+#     *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#         *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#     *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER II
+
+#                         The Pool of Tears
+
+
+  `Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
+surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
+English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that
+ever was!  Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her
+feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so
+far off).  `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
+your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?  I'm sure _I_ shan't
+be able!  I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself
+about you:  you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be
+kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the
+way I want to go!  Let me see:  I'll give them a new pair of
+boots every Christmas.'
+
+  And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
+`They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll
+seem, sending presents to one's own feet!  And how odd the
+directions will look!
+
+            ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
+                HEARTHRUG,
+                    NEAR THE FENDER,
+                        (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).
+
+Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'
+
+  Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall:  in
+fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took
+up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
+
+  Poor Alice!  It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
+side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get
+through was more hopeless than ever:  she sat down and began to
+cry again.
+
+  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
+girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in
+this way!  Stop this moment, I tell you!'  But she went on all
+the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool
+all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the
+hall.
+
+  After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
+distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
+It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a
+pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the
+other:  he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to
+himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she
+be savage if I've kept her waiting!'  Alice felt so desperate
+that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit
+came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please,
+sir--'  The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid
+gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard
+as he could go.
+
+  Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
+hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking:
+`Dear, dear!  How queer everything is to-day!  And yesterday
+things went on just as usual.  I wonder if I've been changed in
+the night?  Let me think:  was I the same when I got up this
+morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little
+different.  But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in
+the world am I?  Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!'  And she began
+thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age
+as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
+them.
+
+  `I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
+long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm
+sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
+oh! she knows such a very little!  Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I,
+and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is!  I'll try if I know all the
+things I used to know.  Let me see:  four times five is twelve,
+and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
+I shall never get to twenty at that rate!  However, the
+Multiplication Table doesn't signify:  let's try Geography.
+London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome,
+and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain!  I must have been
+changed for Mabel!  I'll try and say "How doth the little--"'
+and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons,
+and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
+strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:--
+
+            `How doth the little crocodile
+              Improve his shining tail,
+            And pour the waters of the Nile
+              On every golden scale!
+
+            `How cheerfully he seems to grin,
+              How neatly spread his claws,
+            And welcome little fishes in
+              With gently smiling jaws!'
+
+  `I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
+her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel
+after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
+house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so
+many lessons to learn!  No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm
+Mabel, I'll stay down here!  It'll be no use their putting their
+heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!"  I shall only look
+up and say "Who am I then?  Tell me that first, and then, if I
+like being that person, I'll come up:  if not, I'll stay down
+here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a
+sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads
+down!  I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!'
+
+  As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was
+surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
+white kid gloves while she was talking.  `How CAN I have done
+that?' she thought.  `I must be growing small again.'  She got up
+and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that,
+as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
+and was going on shrinking rapidly:  she soon found out that the
+cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
+hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
+
+`That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at
+the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in
+existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed
+back to the little door:  but, alas! the little door was shut
+again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as
+before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child,
+`for I never was so small as this before, never!  And I declare
+it's too bad, that it is!'
+
+  As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another
+moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.  Her first
+idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that
+case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself.  (Alice had
+been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
+conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find
+a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in
+the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
+behind them a railway station.)  However, she soon made out that
+she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
+feet high.
+
+  `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
+trying to find her way out.  `I shall be punished for it now, I
+suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!  That WILL be a queer
+thing, to be sure!  However, everything is queer to-day.'
+
+  Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
+little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was:  at
+first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then
+she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that
+it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
+
+  `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
+mouse?  Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should
+think very likely it can talk:  at any rate, there's no harm in
+trying.'  So she began:  `O Mouse, do you know the way out of
+this pool?  I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'
+(Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse:
+she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having
+seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a
+mouse--a mouse--O mouse!')  The Mouse looked at her rather
+inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little
+eyes, but it said nothing.
+
+  `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I
+daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the
+Conqueror.'  (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had
+no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.)  So she
+began again:  `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in
+her French lesson-book.  The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the
+water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.  `Oh, I beg
+your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the
+poor animal's feelings.  `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'
+
+  `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
+voice.  `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'
+
+  `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone:  `don't be
+angry about it.  And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah:
+I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
+She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself,
+as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so
+nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and
+she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital
+one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again,
+for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt
+certain it must be really offended.  `We won't talk about her any
+more if you'd rather not.'
+
+  `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end
+of his tail.  `As if I would talk on such a subject!  Our family
+always HATED cats:  nasty, low, vulgar things!  Don't let me hear
+the name again!'
+
+  `I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
+subject of conversation.  `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?'
+The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly:  `There is
+such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you!
+A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly
+brown hair!  And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and
+it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I
+can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
+know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!
+He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a
+sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!'  For the
+Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
+making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.
+
+  So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear!  Do come back
+again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
+like them!'  When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam
+slowly back to her:  its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice
+thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, `Let us get to
+the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll
+understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.'
+
+  It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
+with the birds and animals that had fallen into it:  there were a
+Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious
+creatures.  Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the
+shore.
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER III
+
+#                   A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
+
+
+  They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the
+bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their
+fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
+uncomfortable.
+
+  The first question of course was, how to get dry again:  they
+had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed
+quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with
+them, as if she had known them all her life.  Indeed, she had
+quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky,
+and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better';
+and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was,
+and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no
+more to be said.
+
+  At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among
+them, called out, `Sit down, all of you, and listen to me!  I'LL
+soon make you dry enough!'  They all sat down at once, in a large
+ring, with the Mouse in the middle.  Alice kept her eyes
+anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad
+cold if she did not get dry very soon.
+
+  `Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready?
+This is the driest thing I know.  Silence all round, if you please!
+"William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was
+soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been
+of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest.  Edwin and
+Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'
+
+  `Ugh!' said the Lory, with a shiver.
+
+  `I beg your pardon!' said the Mouse, frowning, but very
+politely:  `Did you speak?'
+
+  `Not I!' said the Lory hastily.
+
+  `I thought you did,' said the Mouse.  `--I proceed.  "Edwin and
+Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him:
+and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found
+it advisable--"'
+
+  `Found WHAT?' said the Duck.
+
+  `Found IT,' the Mouse replied rather crossly:  `of course you
+know what "it" means.'
+
+  `I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said
+the Duck:  `it's generally a frog or a worm.  The question is,
+what did the archbishop find?'
+
+  The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on,
+`"--found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William
+and offer him the crown.  William's conduct at first was
+moderate.  But the insolence of his Normans--"  How are you
+getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it
+spoke.
+
+  `As wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone:  `it doesn't
+seem to dry me at all.'
+
+  `In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, `I
+move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
+energetic remedies--'
+
+  `Speak English!' said the Eaglet.  `I don't know the meaning of
+half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do
+either!'  And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile:
+some of the other birds tittered audibly.
+
+  `What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone,
+`was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'
+
+  `What IS a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much
+to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY
+ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
+
+  `Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.'
+(And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter
+day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
+
+  First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the
+exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party
+were placed along the course, here and there.  There was no `One,
+two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked,
+and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know
+when the race was over.  However, when they had been running half
+an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called
+out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting,
+and asking, `But who has won?'
+
+  This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of
+thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon
+its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare,
+in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence.  At
+last the Dodo said, `EVERYBODY has won, and all must have
+prizes.'
+
+  `But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices
+asked.
+
+  `Why, SHE, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with
+one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her,
+calling out in a confused way, `Prizes! Prizes!'
+
+  Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand
+in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt
+water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes.
+There was exactly one a-piece all round.
+
+  `But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse.
+
+  `Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely.  `What else have
+you got in your pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice.
+
+  `Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly.
+
+  `Hand it over here,' said the Dodo.
+
+  Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo
+solemnly presented the thimble, saying `We beg your acceptance of
+this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short
+speech, they all cheered.
+
+  Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked
+so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not
+think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble,
+looking as solemn as she could.
+
+  The next thing was to eat the comfits:  this caused some noise
+and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not
+taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on
+the back.  However, it was over at last, and they sat down again
+in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
+
+  `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice,
+`and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half
+afraid that it would be offended again.
+
+  `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to
+Alice, and sighing.
+
+  `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with
+wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?'  And
+she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so
+that her idea of the tale was something like this:--
+
+                    `Fury said to a
+                   mouse, That he
+                 met in the
+               house,
+            "Let us
+              both go to
+                law:  I will
+                  prosecute
+                    YOU.  --Come,
+                       I'll take no
+                        denial; We
+                     must have a
+                 trial:  For
+              really this
+           morning I've
+          nothing
+         to do."
+           Said the
+             mouse to the
+               cur, "Such
+                 a trial,
+                   dear Sir,
+                         With
+                     no jury
+                  or judge,
+                would be
+              wasting
+             our
+              breath."
+               "I'll be
+                 judge, I'll
+                   be jury,"
+                         Said
+                    cunning
+                      old Fury:
+                     "I'll
+                      try the
+                         whole
+                          cause,
+                             and
+                        condemn
+                       you
+                      to
+                       death."'
+
+
+  `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely.
+`What are you thinking of?'
+
+  `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly:  `you had got to
+the fifth bend, I think?'
+
+  `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
+
+  `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
+looking anxiously about her.  `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'
+
+  `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up
+and walking away.  `You insult me by talking such nonsense!'
+
+  `I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice.  `But you're so easily
+offended, you know!'
+
+  The Mouse only growled in reply.
+
+  `Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after
+it; and the others all joined in chorus, `Yes, please do!' but
+the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
+quicker.
+
+  `What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it
+was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of
+saying to her daughter `Ah, my dear!  Let this be a lesson to you
+never to lose YOUR temper!'  `Hold your tongue, Ma!' said the
+young Crab, a little snappishly.  `You're enough to try the
+patience of an oyster!'
+
+  `I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud,
+addressing nobody in particular.  `She'd soon fetch it back!'
+
+  `And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?'
+said the Lory.
+
+  Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about
+her pet:  `Dinah's our cat.  And she's such a capital one for
+catching mice you can't think!  And oh, I wish you could see her
+after the birds!  Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look
+at it!'
+
+  This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party.
+Some of the birds hurried off at once:  one old Magpie began
+wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, `I really must be
+getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my throat!' and a Canary
+called out in a trembling voice to its children, `Come away, my
+dears!  It's high time you were all in bed!'  On various pretexts
+they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
+
+  `I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah!' she said to herself in a
+melancholy tone.  `Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm
+sure she's the best cat in the world!  Oh, my dear Dinah!  I
+wonder if I shall ever see you any more!'  And here poor Alice
+began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited.
+In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of
+footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping
+that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to
+finish his story.
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER IV
+
+#                 The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
+
+
+  It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and
+looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something;
+and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess!  The Duchess!
+Oh my dear paws!  Oh my fur and whiskers!  She'll get me
+executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!  Where CAN I have
+dropped them, I wonder?'  Alice guessed in a moment that it was
+looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she
+very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were
+nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her
+swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and
+the little door, had vanished completely.
+
+  Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about,
+and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE
+you doing out here?  Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of
+gloves and a fan!  Quick, now!'  And Alice was so much frightened
+that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
+trying to explain the mistake it had made.
+
+  `He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran.
+`How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!  But I'd
+better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'
+As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door
+of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT'
+engraved upon it.  She went in without knocking, and hurried
+upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann,
+and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and
+gloves.
+
+  `How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, `to be going
+messages for a rabbit!  I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on
+messages next!'  And she began fancying the sort of thing that
+would happen:  `"Miss Alice!  Come here directly, and get ready
+for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse!  But I've got to see
+that the mouse doesn't get out."  Only I don't think,' Alice went
+on, `that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering
+people about like that!'
+
+  By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with
+a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two
+or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves:  she took up the fan and
+a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when
+her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-
+glass.  There was no label this time with the words `DRINK ME,'
+but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips.  `I know
+SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself,
+`whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this
+bottle does.  I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for
+really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'
+
+  It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected:
+before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing
+against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
+broken.  She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself
+`That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is, I
+can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so
+much!'
+
+  Alas! it was too late to wish that!  She went on growing, and
+growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor:  in
+another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried
+the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the
+other arm curled round her head.  Still she went on growing, and,
+as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one
+foot up the chimney, and said to herself `Now I can do no more,
+whatever happens.  What WILL become of me?'
+
+  Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full
+effect, and she grew no larger:  still it was very uncomfortable,
+and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting
+out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.
+
+  `It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, `when one
+wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about
+by mice and rabbits.  I almost wish I hadn't gone down that
+rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know,
+this sort of life!  I do wonder what CAN have happened to me!
+When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing
+never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!  There
+ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!  And when
+I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm grown up now,' she added in a
+sorrowful tone; `at least there's no room to grow up any more
+HERE.'
+
+  `But then,' thought Alice, `shall I NEVER get any older than I
+am now?  That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--
+but then--always to have lessons to learn!  Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!'
+
+  `Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself.  `How can you
+learn lessons in here?  Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no
+room at all for any lesson-books!'
+
+  And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other,
+and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few
+minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.
+
+  `Mary Ann!  Mary Ann!' said the voice.  `Fetch me my gloves
+this moment!'  Then came a little pattering of feet on the
+stairs.  Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and
+she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she
+was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no
+reason to be afraid of it.
+
+  Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it;
+but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed
+hard against it, that attempt proved a failure.  Alice heard it
+say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.'
+
+  `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she
+fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly
+spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air.  She did not
+get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall,
+and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was
+just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something
+of the sort.
+
+  Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat!  Where are
+you?'  And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then
+I'm here!  Digging for apples, yer honour!'
+
+  `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily.  `Here!
+Come and help me out of THIS!'  (Sounds of more broken glass.)
+
+  `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?'
+
+  `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!'  (He pronounced it `arrum.')
+
+  `An arm, you goose!   Who ever saw one that size?  Why, it
+fills the whole window!'
+
+  `Sure, it does, yer honour:  but it's an arm for all that.'
+
+  `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate:  go and take it
+away!'
+
+  There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear
+whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer
+honour, at all, at all!'  `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at
+last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in
+the air.  This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more
+sounds of broken glass.  `What a number of cucumber-frames there
+must be!' thought Alice.  `I wonder what they'll do next!  As for
+pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD!  I'm sure I
+don't want to stay in here any longer!'
+
+  She waited for some time without hearing anything more:  at
+last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a
+good many voices all talking together:  she made out the words:
+`Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one;
+Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up
+at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half
+high enough yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular--
+Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind
+that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down!  Heads below!' (a loud
+crash)--`Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's to go
+down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! YOU do it!--That I won't,
+then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to
+go down the chimney!'
+
+  `Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said
+Alice to herself.  `Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill!
+I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal:  this fireplace is
+narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!'
+
+  She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and
+waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what
+sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close
+above her:  then, saying to herself `This is Bill,' she gave one
+sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.
+
+  The first thing she heard was a general chorus of `There goes
+Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--`Catch him, you by the
+hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--`Hold
+up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow?
+What happened to you?  Tell us all about it!'
+
+  Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (`That's Bill,'
+thought Alice,) `Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm
+better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know
+is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes
+like a sky-rocket!'
+
+  `So you did, old fellow!' said the others.
+
+  `We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and
+Alice called out as loud as she could, `If you do.  I'll set
+Dinah at you!'
+
+  There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to
+herself, `I wonder what they WILL do next!  If they had any
+sense, they'd take the roof off.'  After a minute or two, they
+began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, `A
+barrowful will do, to begin with.'
+
+  `A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to
+doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came
+rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face.
+`I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out,
+`You'd better not do that again!' which produced another dead
+silence.
+
+  Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all
+turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright
+idea came into her head.  `If I eat one of these cakes,' she
+thought, `it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it
+can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I
+suppose.'
+
+  So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find
+that she began shrinking directly.  As soon as she was small
+enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and
+found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside.
+The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by
+two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
+They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she
+ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a
+thick wood.
+
+  `The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she
+wandered about in the wood, `is to grow to my right size again;
+and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden.
+I think that will be the best plan.'
+
+  It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and
+simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the
+smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering
+about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over
+her head made her look up in a great hurry.
+
+  An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round
+eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her.
+`Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried
+hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the
+time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it
+would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.
+
+  Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of
+stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped
+into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight,
+and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice
+dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run
+over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy
+made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in
+its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very
+like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every
+moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
+again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the
+stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long
+way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat
+down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its
+mouth, and its great eyes half shut.
+
+  This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape;
+so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out
+of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the
+distance.
+
+  `And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she
+leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself
+with one of the leaves:  `I should have liked teaching it tricks
+very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to do it!  Oh
+dear!  I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again!  Let
+me see--how IS it to be managed?  I suppose I ought to eat or
+drink something or other; but the great question is, what?'
+
+  The great question certainly was, what?  Alice looked all round
+her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see
+anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under
+the circumstances.  There was a large mushroom growing near her,
+about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under
+it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her
+that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
+
+  She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of
+the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large
+caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
+quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice
+of her or of anything else.
+
+
+
+#                             CHAPTER V
+
+#                     Advice from a Caterpillar
+
+
+  The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in
+silence:  at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
+mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
+
+  `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.  Alice
+replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--
+at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think
+I must have been changed several times since then.'
+
+  `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly.
+`Explain yourself!'
+
+  `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because
+I'm not myself, you see.'
+
+  `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very
+politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and
+being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'
+
+  `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but
+when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you
+know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll
+feel it a little queer, won't you?'
+
+  `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice;
+`all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.'
+
+  `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously.  `Who are YOU?'
+
+  Which brought them back again to the beginning of the
+conversation.  Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's
+making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said,
+very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.'
+
+  `Why?' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not
+think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in
+a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
+
+  `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her.  `I've something
+important to say!'
+
+  This sounded promising, certainly:  Alice turned and came back
+again.
+
+  `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as
+she could.
+
+  `No,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else
+to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth
+hearing.  For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but
+at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth
+again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?'
+
+  `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as
+I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'
+
+  `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it
+all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
+
+  `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  Alice folded her hands, and began:--
+
+    `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
+      `And your hair has become very white;
+    And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
+      Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
+
+    `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
+      `I feared it might injure the brain;
+    But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
+      Why, I do it again and again.'
+
+    `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before,
+      And have grown most uncommonly fat;
+    Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
+      Pray, what is the reason of that?'
+
+    `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
+      `I kept all my limbs very supple
+    By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
+      Allow me to sell you a couple?'
+
+    `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak
+      For anything tougher than suet;
+    Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
+      Pray how did you manage to do it?'
+
+    `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law,
+      And argued each case with my wife;
+    And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
+      Has lasted the rest of my life.'
+
+    `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose
+      That your eye was as steady as ever;
+    Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
+      What made you so awfully clever?'
+
+    `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
+      Said his father; `don't give yourself airs!
+    Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
+      Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'
+
+
+  `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the
+words have got altered.'
+
+  `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar
+decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
+
+  The Caterpillar was the first to speak.
+
+  `What size do you want to be?' it asked.
+
+  `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied;
+`only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.'
+
+  `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  Alice said nothing:  she had never been so much contradicted in
+her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.
+
+  `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.
+
+  `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you
+wouldn't mind,' said Alice:  `three inches is such a wretched
+height to be.'
+
+  `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar
+angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three
+inches high).
+
+  `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone.
+And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so
+easily offended!'
+
+  `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and it
+put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
+
+  This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again.
+In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
+mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself.  Then it got
+down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely
+remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and
+the other side will make you grow shorter.'
+
+  `One side of WHAT?  The other side of WHAT?' thought Alice to
+herself.
+
+  `Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had
+asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
+
+  Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a
+minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as
+it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.
+However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they
+would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.
+
+  `And now which is which?' she said to herself, and nibbled a
+little of the right-hand bit to try the effect:  the next moment
+she felt a violent blow underneath her chin:  it had struck her
+foot!
+
+  She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but
+she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking
+rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit.
+Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was
+hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and
+managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.
+
+
+#      *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#          *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+#      *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  `Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of
+delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she
+found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found:  all she could
+see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which
+seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay
+far below her.
+
+  `What CAN all that green stuff be?' said Alice.  `And where
+HAVE my shoulders got to?  And oh, my poor hands, how is it I
+can't see you?'  She was moving them about as she spoke, but no
+result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the
+distant green leaves.
+
+  As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her
+head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted
+to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction,
+like a serpent.  She had just succeeded in curving it down into a
+graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which
+she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she
+had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a
+hurry:  a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating
+her violently with its wings.
+
+  `Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon.
+
+  `I'm NOT a serpent!' said Alice indignantly.  `Let me alone!'
+
+  `Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more
+subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I've tried every
+way, and nothing seems to suit them!'
+
+  `I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said
+Alice.
+
+  `I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've
+tried hedges,' the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but
+those serpents!  There's no pleasing them!'
+
+  Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no
+use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.
+
+  `As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the
+Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and
+day!  Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!'
+
+  `I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was
+beginning to see its meaning.
+
+  `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued
+the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was
+thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
+wriggling down from the sky!  Ugh, Serpent!'
+
+  `But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice.  `I'm a--I'm
+a--'
+
+  `Well!  WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon.  `I can see you're
+trying to invent something!'
+
+  `I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she
+remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.
+
+  `A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the
+deepest contempt.  `I've seen a good many little girls in my
+time, but never ONE with such a neck as that!  No, no!  You're a
+serpent; and there's no use denying it.  I suppose you'll be
+telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'
+
+  `I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very
+truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as
+serpents do, you know.'
+
+  `I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why
+then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'
+
+  This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent
+for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of
+adding, `You're looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and
+what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a
+serpent?'
+
+  `It matters a good deal to ME,' said Alice hastily; `but I'm
+not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't
+want YOURS:  I don't like them raw.'
+
+  `Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it
+settled down again into its nest.  Alice crouched down among the
+trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled
+among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and
+untwist it.  After a while she remembered that she still held the
+pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very
+carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and
+growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
+succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.
+
+  It was so long since she had been anything near the right size,
+that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a
+few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual.  `Come,
+there's half my plan done now!  How puzzling all these changes
+are!  I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to
+another!  However, I've got back to my right size:  the next
+thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to be
+done, I wonder?'  As she said this, she came suddenly upon an
+open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.
+`Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, `it'll never do to come
+upon them THIS size:  why, I should frighten them out of their
+wits!'  So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did
+not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself
+down to nine inches high.
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER VI
+
+#                          Pig and Pepper
+
+
+  For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and
+wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came
+running out of the wood--(she considered him to be a footman
+because he was in livery:  otherwise, judging by his face only,
+she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door
+with his knuckles.  It was opened by another footman in livery,
+with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen,
+Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their
+heads.  She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and
+crept a little way out of the wood to listen.
+
+  The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great
+letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to
+the other, saying, in a solemn tone, `For the Duchess.  An
+invitation from the Queen to play croquet.'  The Frog-Footman
+repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the
+words a little, `From the Queen.  An invitation for the Duchess
+to play croquet.'
+
+  Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled
+together.
+
+  Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into
+the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped
+out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the
+ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.
+
+  Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.
+
+  `There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, `and
+that for two reasons.  First, because I'm on the same side of the
+door as you are; secondly, because they're making such a noise
+inside, no one could possibly hear you.'  And certainly there was
+a most extraordinary noise going on within--a constant howling
+and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish
+or kettle had been broken to pieces.
+
+  `Please, then,' said Alice, `how am I to get in?'
+
+  `There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went
+on without attending to her, `if we had the door between us.  For
+instance, if you were INSIDE, you might knock, and I could let
+you out, you know.'  He was looking up into the sky all the time
+he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil.  `But
+perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; `his eyes are so
+VERY nearly at the top of his head.  But at any rate he might
+answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.
+
+  `I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, `till tomorrow--'
+
+  At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate
+came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head:  it just
+grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees
+behind him.
+
+  `--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone,
+exactly as if nothing had happened.
+
+  `How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.
+
+  `ARE you to get in at all?' said the Footman.  `That's the
+first question, you know.'
+
+  It was, no doubt:  only Alice did not like to be told so.
+`It's really dreadful,' she muttered to herself, `the way all the
+creatures argue.  It's enough to drive one crazy!'
+
+  The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for
+repeating his remark, with variations.  `I shall sit here,' he
+said, `on and off, for days and days.'
+
+  `But what am I to do?' said Alice.
+
+  `Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.
+
+  `Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately:
+`he's perfectly idiotic!'  And she opened the door and went in.
+
+  The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of
+smoke from one end to the other:  the Duchess was sitting on a
+three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was
+leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to
+be full of soup.
+
+  `There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to
+herself, as well as she could for sneezing.
+
+  There was certainly too much of it in the air.  Even the
+Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was
+sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause.  The
+only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook,
+and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from
+ear to ear.
+
+  `Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for
+she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to
+speak first, `why your cat grins like that?'
+
+  `It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, `and that's why.  Pig!'
+
+  She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice
+quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed
+to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on
+again:--
+
+  `I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I
+didn't know that cats COULD grin.'
+
+  `They all can,' said the Duchess; `and most of 'em do.'
+
+  `I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely,
+feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.
+
+  `You don't know much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.'
+
+  Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought
+it would be as well to introduce some other subject of
+conversation.  While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took
+the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work
+throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby
+--the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans,
+plates, and dishes.  The Duchess took no notice of them even when
+they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it
+was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.
+
+  `Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up
+and down in an agony of terror.  `Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS
+nose'; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very
+nearly carried it off.
+
+  `If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a
+hoarse growl, `the world would go round a deal faster than it
+does.'
+
+  `Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very
+glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her
+knowledge.  `Just think of what work it would make with the day
+and night!  You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn
+round on its axis--'
+
+  `Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, `chop off her head!'
+
+  Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant
+to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and
+seemed not to be listening, so she went on again:  `Twenty-four
+hours, I THINK; or is it twelve?  I--'
+
+  `Oh, don't bother ME,' said the Duchess; `I never could abide
+figures!'  And with that she began nursing her child again,
+singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a
+violent shake at the end of every line:
+
+        `Speak roughly to your little boy,
+          And beat him when he sneezes:
+        He only does it to annoy,
+          Because he knows it teases.'
+
+                    CHORUS.
+
+    (In which the cook and the baby joined):--
+
+                `Wow! wow! wow!'
+
+  While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept
+tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing
+howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:--
+
+        `I speak severely to my boy,
+          I beat him when he sneezes;
+        For he can thoroughly enjoy
+          The pepper when he pleases!'
+
+                    CHORUS.
+
+                `Wow! wow! wow!'
+
+  `Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said
+to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke.  `I must go and
+get ready to play croquet with the Queen,' and she hurried out of
+the room.  The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out,
+but it just missed her.
+
+  Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-
+shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all
+directions, `just like a star-fish,' thought Alice.  The poor
+little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it,
+and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again,
+so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much
+as she could do to hold it.
+
+  As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it,
+(which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep
+tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its
+undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air.  `IF I
+don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, `they're sure
+to kill it in a day or two:  wouldn't it be murder to leave it
+behind?'  She said the last words out loud, and the little thing
+grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time).  `Don't
+grunt,' said Alice; `that's not at all a proper way of expressing
+yourself.'
+
+  The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into
+its face to see what was the matter with it.  There could be no
+doubt that it had a VERY turn-up nose, much more like a snout
+than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for
+a baby:  altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at
+all.  `But perhaps it was only sobbing,' she thought, and looked
+into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.
+
+  No, there were no tears.  `If you're going to turn into a pig,
+my dear,' said Alice, seriously, `I'll have nothing more to do
+with you.  Mind now!'  The poor little thing sobbed again (or
+grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for
+some while in silence.
+
+  Alice was just beginning to think to herself, `Now, what am I
+to do with this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted
+again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some
+alarm.  This time there could be NO mistake about it:  it was
+neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be
+quite absurd for her to carry it further.
+
+  So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to
+see it trot away quietly into the wood.  `If it had grown up,'
+she said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child:
+but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.'  And she began
+thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as
+pigs, and was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right
+way to change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing
+the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
+
+  The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice.  It looked good-
+natured, she thought:  still it had VERY long claws and a great
+many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
+
+  `Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at
+all know whether it would like the name:  however, it only
+grinned a little wider.  `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought
+Alice, and she went on.  `Would you tell me, please, which way I
+ought to go from here?'
+
+  `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said
+the Cat.
+
+  `I don't much care where--' said Alice.
+
+  `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
+
+  `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
+
+  `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk
+long enough.'
+
+  Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
+question.  `What sort of people live about here?'
+
+  `In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
+`lives a Hatter:  and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw,
+`lives a March Hare.  Visit either you like:  they're both mad.'
+
+  `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
+
+  `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat:  `we're all mad here.
+I'm mad.  You're mad.'
+
+  `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
+
+  `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
+
+  Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on
+`And how do you know that you're mad?'
+
+  `To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad.  You grant
+that?'
+
+  `I suppose so,' said Alice.
+
+  `Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's
+angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased.  Now I growl when I'm
+pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry.  Therefore I'm mad.'
+
+  `I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.
+
+  `Call it what you like,' said the Cat.  `Do you play croquet
+with the Queen to-day?'
+
+  `I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been
+invited yet.'
+
+  `You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.
+
+  Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used
+to queer things happening.  While she was looking at the place
+where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
+
+  `By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat.  `I'd
+nearly forgotten to ask.'
+
+  `It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had
+come back in a natural way.
+
+  `I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.
+
+  Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it
+did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
+direction in which the March Hare was said to live.  `I've seen
+hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be
+much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
+raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.'  As she said
+this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
+branch of a tree.
+
+  `Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.
+
+  `I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep
+appearing and vanishing so suddenly:  you make one quite giddy.'
+
+  `All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
+beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin,
+which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
+
+  `Well!  I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice;
+`but a grin without a cat!  It's the most curious thing I ever
+saw in my life!'
+
+  She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the
+house of the March Hare:  she thought it must be the right house,
+because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
+thatched with fur.  It was so large a house, that she did not
+like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand
+bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high:  even
+then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself
+`Suppose it should be raving mad after all!  I almost wish I'd
+gone to see the Hatter instead!'
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER VII
+
+#                          A Mad Tea-Party
+
+
+  There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house,
+and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it:  a
+Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two
+were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking
+over its head.  `Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice;
+`only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'
+
+  The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded
+together at one corner of it:  `No room!  No room!' they cried
+out when they saw Alice coming.  `There's PLENTY of room!' said
+Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one
+end of the table.
+
+  `Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
+
+  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it
+but tea.  `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
+
+  `There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
+
+  `Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice
+angrily.
+
+  `It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being
+invited,' said the March Hare.
+
+  `I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a
+great many more than three.'
+
+  `Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter.  He had been
+looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was
+his first speech.
+
+  `You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said
+with some severity; `it's very rude.'
+
+  The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all
+he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
+
+  `Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad
+they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she
+added aloud.
+
+  `Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?'
+said the March Hare.
+
+  `Exactly so,' said Alice.
+
+  `Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
+
+  `I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what
+I say--that's the same thing, you know.'
+
+  `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter.  `You might just
+as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
+what I see"!'
+
+  `You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I
+like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
+
+  `You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to
+be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the
+same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
+
+  `It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
+conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute,
+while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and
+writing-desks, which wasn't much.
+
+  The Hatter was the first to break the silence.  `What day of
+the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice:  he had taken his
+watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking
+it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
+
+  Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'
+
+  `Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.  `I told you butter
+wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March
+Hare.
+
+  `It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.
+
+  `Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter
+grumbled:  `you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'
+
+  The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily:  then
+he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again:  but he
+could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It
+was the BEST butter, you know.'
+
+  Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity.
+`What a funny watch!' she remarked.  `It tells the day of the
+month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'
+
+  `Why should it?' muttered the Hatter.  `Does YOUR watch tell
+you what year it is?'
+
+  `Of course not,' Alice replied very readily:  `but that's
+because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'
+
+  `Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.
+
+  Alice felt dreadfully puzzled.  The Hatter's remark seemed to
+have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.
+`I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she
+could.
+
+  `The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured
+a little hot tea upon its nose.
+
+  The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without
+opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to
+remark myself.'
+
+  `Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to
+Alice again.
+
+  `No, I give it up,' Alice replied:  `what's the answer?'
+
+  `I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.
+
+  `Nor I,' said the March Hare.
+
+  Alice sighed wearily.  `I think you might do something better
+with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that
+have no answers.'
+
+  `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you
+wouldn't talk about wasting IT.  It's HIM.'
+
+  `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
+
+  `Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head
+contemptuously.  `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
+
+  `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied:  `but I know I have to
+beat time when I learn music.'
+
+  `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter.  `He won't stand
+beating.  Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do
+almost anything you liked with the clock.  For instance, suppose
+it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
+you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the
+clock in a twinkling!  Half-past one, time for dinner!'
+
+  (`I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a
+whisper.)
+
+  `That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully:
+`but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'
+
+  `Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter:  `but you could keep
+it to half-past one as long as you liked.'
+
+  `Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.
+
+  The Hatter shook his head mournfully.  `Not I!' he replied.
+`We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--'
+(pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it was at the
+great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing
+
+            "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
+            How I wonder what you're at!"
+
+You know the song, perhaps?'
+
+  `I've heard something like it,' said Alice.
+
+  `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:--
+
+            "Up above the world you fly,
+            Like a tea-tray in the sky.
+                    Twinkle, twinkle--"'
+
+Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep
+`Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that
+they had to pinch it to make it stop.
+
+  `Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter,
+`when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the
+time!  Off with his head!"'
+
+  `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.
+
+  `And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone,
+`he won't do a thing I ask!  It's always six o'clock now.'
+
+  A bright idea came into Alice's head.  `Is that the reason so
+many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.
+
+  `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh:  `it's always
+tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'
+
+  `Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.
+
+  `Exactly so,' said the Hatter:  `as the things get used up.'
+
+  `But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice
+ventured to ask.
+
+  `Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted,
+yawning.  `I'm getting tired of this.  I vote the young lady
+tells us a story.'
+
+  `I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at
+the proposal.
+
+  `Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried.  `Wake up,
+Dormouse!'  And they pinched it on both sides at once.
+
+  The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes.  `I wasn't asleep,' he
+said in a hoarse, feeble voice:  `I heard every word you fellows
+were saying.'
+
+  `Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.
+
+  `Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.
+
+  `And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, `or you'll be asleep
+again before it's done.'
+
+  `Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the
+Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie,
+Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'
+
+  `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great
+interest in questions of eating and drinking.
+
+  `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a
+minute or two.
+
+  `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently
+remarked; `they'd have been ill.'
+
+  `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.'
+
+  Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways
+of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went
+on:  `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'
+
+  `Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very
+earnestly.
+
+  `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so
+I can't take more.'
+
+  `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter:  `it's very
+easy to take MORE than nothing.'
+
+  `Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.
+
+  `Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked
+triumphantly.
+
+  Alice did not quite know what to say to this:  so she helped
+herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
+Dormouse, and repeated her question.  `Why did they live at the
+bottom of a well?'
+
+  The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and
+then said, `It was a treacle-well.'
+
+  `There's no such thing!'  Alice was beginning very angrily, but
+the Hatter and the March Hare went `Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse
+sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the
+story for yourself.'
+
+  `No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; `I won't interrupt
+again.  I dare say there may be ONE.'
+
+  `One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly.  However, he
+consented to go on.  `And so these three little sisters--they
+were learning to draw, you know--'
+
+  `What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
+
+  `Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this
+time.
+
+  `I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter:  `let's all move
+one place on.'
+
+  He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him:  the
+March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
+unwillingly took the place of the March Hare.  The Hatter was the
+only one who got any advantage from the change:  and Alice was a
+good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset
+the milk-jug into his plate.
+
+  Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began
+very cautiously:  `But I don't understand.  Where did they draw
+the treacle from?'
+
+  `You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; `so
+I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh,
+stupid?'
+
+  `But they were IN the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not
+choosing to notice this last remark.
+
+  `Of course they were', said the Dormouse; `--well in.'
+
+  This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse
+go on for some time without interrupting it.
+
+  `They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and
+rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; `and they drew
+all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--'
+
+  `Why with an M?' said Alice.
+
+  `Why not?' said the March Hare.
+
+  Alice was silent.
+
+  The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going
+off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up
+again with a little shriek, and went on:  `--that begins with an
+M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--
+you know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever
+see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?'
+
+  `Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I
+don't think--'
+
+  `Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
+
+  This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear:  she got
+up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep
+instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her
+going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that
+they would call after her:  the last time she saw them, they were
+trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
+
+  `At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she
+picked her way through the wood.  `It's the stupidest tea-party I
+ever was at in all my life!'
+
+  Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a
+door leading right into it.  `That's very curious!' she thought.
+`But everything's curious today.  I think I may as well go in at once.'
+And in she went.
+
+  Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the
+little glass table.  `Now, I'll manage better this time,'
+she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key,
+and unlocking the door that led into the garden.  Then she went
+to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it
+in her pocket) till she was about a foot high:  then she walked down
+the little passage:  and THEN--she found herself at last in the
+beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.
+
+
+
+#                           CHAPTER VIII
+
+#                    The Queen's Croquet-Ground
+
+
+  A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden:  the
+roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at
+it, busily painting them red.  Alice thought this a very curious
+thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up
+to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five!  Don't go
+splashing paint over me like that!'
+
+  `I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; `Seven jogged
+my elbow.'
+
+  On which Seven looked up and said, `That's right, Five!  Always
+lay the blame on others!'
+
+  `YOU'D better not talk!' said Five.  `I heard the Queen say only
+yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'
+
+  `What for?' said the one who had spoken first.
+
+  `That's none of YOUR business, Two!' said Seven.
+
+  `Yes, it IS his business!' said Five, `and I'll tell him--it
+was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'
+
+  Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all
+the unjust things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as
+she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly:  the
+others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
+
+  `Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are
+painting those roses?'
+
+  Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two.  Two began in a
+low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to
+have been a RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake;
+and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads
+cut off, you know.  So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore
+she comes, to--'  At this moment Five, who had been anxiously
+looking across the garden, called out `The Queen!  The Queen!'
+and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon
+their faces.  There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice
+looked round, eager to see the Queen.
+
+  First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped
+like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and
+feet at the corners:  next the ten courtiers; these were
+ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the
+soldiers did.  After these came the royal children; there were
+ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand
+in hand, in couples:  they were all ornamented with hearts.  Next
+came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice
+recognised the White Rabbit:  it was talking in a hurried nervous
+manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
+noticing her.  Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the
+King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this
+grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.
+
+  Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on
+her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember
+ever having heard of such a rule at processions; `and besides,
+what would be the use of a procession,' thought she, `if people
+had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see it?'
+So she stood still where she was, and waited.
+
+  When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped
+and looked at her, and the Queen said severely `Who is this?'
+She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.
+
+  `Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and,
+turning to Alice, she went on, `What's your name, child?'
+
+  `My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very
+politely; but she added, to herself, `Why, they're only a pack of
+cards, after all.  I needn't be afraid of them!'
+
+  `And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three
+gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as
+they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs
+was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether
+they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her
+own children.
+
+  `How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage.
+`It's no business of MINE.'
+
+  The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her
+for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head!
+Off--'
+
+  `Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the
+Queen was silent.
+
+  The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said
+`Consider, my dear:  she is only a child!'
+
+  The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave
+`Turn them over!'
+
+  The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.
+
+  `Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the
+three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the
+King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.
+
+  `Leave off that!' screamed the Queen.  `You make me giddy.'
+And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, `What HAVE you
+been doing here?'
+
+  `May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone,
+going down on one knee as he spoke, `we were trying--'
+
+  `I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
+roses.  `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on,
+three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate
+gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.
+
+  `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a
+large flower-pot that stood near.  The three soldiers wandered
+about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly
+marched off after the others.
+
+  `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.
+
+  `Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers
+shouted in reply.
+
+  `That's right!' shouted the Queen.  `Can you play croquet?'
+
+  The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question
+was evidently meant for her.
+
+  `Yes!' shouted Alice.
+
+  `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the
+procession, wondering very much what would happen next.
+
+  `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side.
+She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously
+into her face.
+
+  `Very,' said Alice:  `--where's the Duchess?'
+
+  `Hush!  Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone.  He
+looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised
+himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and
+whispered `She's under sentence of execution.'
+
+  `What for?' said Alice.
+
+  `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.
+
+  `No, I didn't,' said Alice:  `I don't think it's at all a pity.
+I said "What for?"'
+
+  `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began.  Alice gave a
+little scream of laughter.  `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a
+frightened tone.  `The Queen will hear you!  You see, she came
+rather late, and the Queen said--'
+
+  `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,
+and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up
+against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or
+two, and the game began.  Alice thought she had never seen such a
+curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and
+furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live
+flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to
+stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
+
+  The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
+flamingo:  she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,
+comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down,
+but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened
+out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it
+WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a
+puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:
+and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,
+it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
+itself, and was in the act of crawling away:  besides all this,
+there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she
+wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers
+were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the
+ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very
+difficult game indeed.
+
+  The players all played at once without waiting for turns,
+quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in
+a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went
+stamping about, and shouting `Off with his head!' or `Off with
+her head!' about once in a minute.
+
+  Alice began to feel very uneasy:  to be sure, she had not as
+yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might
+happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would become of
+me?  They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great
+wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'
+
+  She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering
+whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a
+curious appearance in the air:  it puzzled her very much at
+first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to
+be a grin, and she said to herself `It's the Cheshire Cat:  now I
+shall have somebody to talk to.'
+
+  `How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was
+mouth enough for it to speak with.
+
+  Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded.  `It's no
+use speaking to it,' she thought, `till its ears have come, or at
+least one of them.'  In another minute the whole head appeared,
+and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the
+game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her.  The
+Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and
+no more of it appeared.
+
+  `I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather
+a complaining tone, `and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't
+hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in
+particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and
+you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive;
+for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next
+walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have
+croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it
+saw mine coming!'
+
+  `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.
+
+  `Not at all,' said Alice:  `she's so extremely--'  Just then
+she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening:  so
+she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while
+finishing the game.'
+
+  The Queen smiled and passed on.
+
+  `Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and
+looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.
+
+  `It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice:  `allow me
+to introduce it.'
+
+  `I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King:
+`however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
+
+  `I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
+
+  `Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at me
+like that!'  He got behind Alice as he spoke.
+
+  `A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.  `I've read that in
+some book, but I don't remember where.'
+
+  `Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and
+he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear!  I
+wish you would have this cat removed!'
+
+  The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great
+or small.  `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking
+round.
+
+  `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and
+he hurried off.
+
+  Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game
+was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance,
+screaming with passion.  She had already heard her sentence three
+of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and
+she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in
+such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or
+not.  So she went in search of her hedgehog.
+
+  The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog,
+which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one
+of them with the other:  the only difficulty was, that her
+flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where
+Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up
+into a tree.
+
+  By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back,
+the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight:
+`but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches
+are gone from this side of the ground.'  So she tucked it away
+under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for
+a little more conversation with her friend.
+
+  When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to
+find quite a large crowd collected round it:  there was a dispute
+going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who
+were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent,
+and looked very uncomfortable.
+
+  The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to
+settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her,
+though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed
+to make out exactly what they said.
+
+  The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a
+head unless there was a body to cut it off from:  that he had
+never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin
+at HIS time of life.
+
+  The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
+beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.
+
+  The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about
+it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round.
+(It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so
+grave and anxious.)
+
+  Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the
+Duchess:  you'd better ask HER about it.'
+
+  `She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner:  `fetch
+her here.'  And the executioner went off like an arrow.
+
+   The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
+by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely
+disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
+looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER IX
+
+#                      The Mock Turtle's Story
+
+
+  `You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old
+thing!' said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately
+into Alice's, and they walked off together.
+
+  Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and
+thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had
+made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.
+
+  `When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very
+hopeful tone though), `I won't have any pepper in my kitchen AT
+ALL.  Soup does very well without--Maybe it's always pepper that
+makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at
+having found out a new kind of rule, `and vinegar that makes them
+sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar
+and such things that make children sweet-tempered.  I only wish
+people knew that:  then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you
+know--'
+
+  She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a
+little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear.
+`You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
+forget to talk.  I can't tell you just now what the moral of that
+is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'
+
+  `Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.
+
+  `Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess.  `Everything's got a
+moral, if only you can find it.'  And she squeezed herself up
+closer to Alice's side as she spoke.
+
+  Alice did not much like keeping so close to her:  first,
+because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was
+exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder,
+and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin.  However, she did not
+like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.
+
+  `The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of
+keeping up the conversation a little.
+
+  `'Tis so,' said the Duchess:  `and the moral of that is--"Oh,
+'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'
+
+  `Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody
+minding their own business!'
+
+  `Ah, well!  It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess,
+digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added,
+`and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the
+sounds will take care of themselves."'
+
+  `How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to
+herself.
+
+  `I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your
+waist,' the Duchess said after a pause:  `the reason is, that I'm
+doubtful about the temper of your flamingo.  Shall I try the
+experiment?'
+
+  `HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all
+anxious to have the experiment tried.
+
+  `Very true,' said the Duchess:  `flamingoes and mustard both
+bite.  And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock
+together."'
+
+  `Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.
+
+  `Right, as usual,' said the Duchess:  `what a clear way you
+have of putting things!'
+
+  `It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice.
+
+  `Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree
+to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near
+here.  And the moral of that is--"The more there is of mine, the
+less there is of yours."'
+
+  `Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this
+last remark, `it's a vegetable.  It doesn't look like one, but it
+is.'
+
+  `I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of
+that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put
+more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than
+what it might appear to others that what you were or might have
+been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared
+to them to be otherwise."'
+
+  `I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very
+politely, `if I had it written down:  but I can't quite follow it
+as you say it.'
+
+  `That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess
+replied, in a pleased tone.
+
+  `Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,'
+said Alice.
+
+  `Oh, don't talk about trouble!' said the Duchess.  `I make you
+a present of everything I've said as yet.'
+
+  `A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad they don't
+give birthday presents like that!'  But she did not venture to
+say it out loud.
+
+  `Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her
+sharp little chin.
+
+  `I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was
+beginning to feel a little worried.
+
+  `Just about as much right,' said the Duchess, `as pigs have to fly;
+and the m--'
+
+  But here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died
+away, even in the middle of her favourite word `moral,' and the
+arm that was linked into hers began to tremble.  Alice looked up,
+and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded,
+frowning like a thunderstorm.
+
+  `A fine day, your Majesty!' the Duchess began in a low, weak
+voice.
+
+  `Now, I give you fair warning,' shouted the Queen, stamping on
+the ground as she spoke; `either you or your head must be off,
+and that in about half no time!  Take your choice!'
+
+  The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.
+
+  `Let's go on with the game,' the Queen said to Alice; and Alice
+was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her
+back to the croquet-ground.
+
+  The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence,
+and were resting in the shade:  however, the moment they saw her,
+they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a
+moment's delay would cost them their lives.
+
+  All the time they were playing the Queen never left off
+quarrelling with the other players, and shouting `Off with his
+head!' or `Off with her head!'  Those whom she sentenced were
+taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave
+off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour
+or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the
+King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of
+execution.
+
+  Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to
+Alice, `Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?'
+
+  `No,' said Alice.  `I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is.'
+
+  `It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,' said the Queen.
+
+  `I never saw one, or heard of one,' said Alice.
+
+  `Come on, then,' said the Queen, `and he shall tell you his
+history,'
+
+  As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low
+voice, to the company generally, `You are all pardoned.'  `Come,
+THAT'S a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite
+unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.
+
+  They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the
+sun.  (IF you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.)
+`Up, lazy thing!' said the Queen, `and take this young lady to
+see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history.  I must go back and
+see after some executions I have ordered'; and she walked off,
+leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon.  Alice did not quite like
+the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would
+be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage
+Queen:  so she waited.
+
+  The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes:  then it watched the
+Queen till she was out of sight:  then it chuckled.  `What fun!'
+said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.
+
+  `What IS the fun?' said Alice.
+
+  `Why, SHE,' said the Gryphon.  `It's all her fancy, that:  they
+never executes nobody, you know.  Come on!'
+
+  `Everybody says "come on!" here,' thought Alice, as she went
+slowly after it:  `I never was so ordered about in all my life,
+never!'
+
+  They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the
+distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and,
+as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart
+would break.  She pitied him deeply.  `What is his sorrow?' she
+asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the
+same words as before, `It's all his fancy, that:  he hasn't got
+no sorrow, you know.  Come on!'
+
+  So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with
+large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.
+
+  `This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, `she wants for to
+know your history, she do.'
+
+  `I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow
+tone:  `sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've
+finished.'
+
+  So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes.  Alice
+thought to herself, `I don't see how he can EVEN finish, if he
+doesn't begin.'  But she waited patiently.
+
+  `Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, `I was
+a real Turtle.'
+
+  These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only
+by an occasional exclamation of `Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and
+the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle.  Alice was very
+nearly getting up and saying, `Thank you, sir, for your
+interesting story,' but she could not help thinking there MUST be
+more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.
+
+  `When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more
+calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, `we went to
+school in the sea.  The master was an old Turtle--we used to call
+him Tortoise--'
+
+  `Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.
+
+  `We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock
+Turtle angrily:  `really you are very dull!'
+
+  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
+question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and
+looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth.  At
+last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, `Drive on, old fellow!
+Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:
+
+  `Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe
+it--'
+
+  `I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.
+
+  `You did,' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak
+again.  The Mock Turtle went on.
+
+  `We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school
+every day--'
+
+  `I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; `you needn't be
+so proud as all that.'
+
+  `With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
+
+  `Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'
+
+  `And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.
+
+  `Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock
+Turtle in a tone of great relief.  `Now at OURS they had at the
+end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'
+
+  `You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the
+bottom of the sea.'
+
+  `I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a
+sigh.  `I only took the regular course.'
+
+  `What was that?' inquired Alice.
+
+  `Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
+Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic--
+Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'
+
+  `I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say.  `What is it?'
+
+  The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise.  `What!  Never
+heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed.  `You know what to beautify is,
+I suppose?'
+
+  `Yes,' said Alice doubtfully:  `it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'
+
+  `Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to
+uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'
+
+  Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about
+it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you
+to learn?'
+
+  `Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting
+off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern,
+with Seaography:  then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old
+conger-eel, that used to come once a week:  HE taught us
+Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'
+
+  `What was THAT like?' said Alice.
+
+  `Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said:  `I'm
+too stiff.  And the Gryphon never learnt it.'
+
+  `Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon:  `I went to the Classics
+master, though.  He was an old crab, HE was.'
+
+  `I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh:  `he
+taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'
+
+  `So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn;
+and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.
+
+  `And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a
+hurry to change the subject.
+
+  `Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the
+next, and so on.'
+
+  `What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
+
+  `That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon
+remarked:  `because they lessen from day to day.'
+
+  This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a
+little before she made her next remark.  `Then the eleventh day
+must have been a holiday?'
+
+  `Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.
+
+  `That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a
+very decided tone:  `tell her something about the games now.'
+
+
+
+#                             CHAPTER X
+
+#                       The Lobster Quadrille
+
+
+  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper
+across his eyes.  He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for
+a minute or two sobs choked his voice.  `Same as if he had a bone
+in his throat,' said the Gryphon:  and it set to work shaking him
+and punching him in the back.  At last the Mock Turtle recovered
+his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on
+again:--
+
+  `You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)--
+`and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster--'
+(Alice began to say `I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily,
+and said `No, never') `--so you can have no idea what a delightful
+thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'
+
+  `No, indeed,' said Alice.  `What sort of a dance is it?'
+
+  `Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'
+
+  `Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle.  `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on;
+then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way--'
+
+  `THAT generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.
+
+  `--you advance twice--'
+
+  `Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.
+
+  `Of course,' the Mock Turtle said:  `advance twice, set to
+partners--'
+
+  `--change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the
+Gryphon.
+
+  `Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the--'
+
+  `The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.
+
+  `--as far out to sea as you can--'
+
+  `Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.
+
+  `Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle,
+capering wildly about.
+
+  `Change lobsters again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
+
+  `Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the
+Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures,
+who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat
+down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.
+
+  `It must be a very pretty dance,' said Alice timidly.
+
+  `Would you like to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `Very much indeed,' said Alice.
+
+  `Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the
+Gryphon.  `We can do without lobsters, you know.  Which shall
+sing?'
+
+  `Oh, YOU sing,' said the Gryphon.  `I've forgotten the words.'
+
+  So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now
+and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and
+waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle
+sang this, very slowly and sadly:--
+
+
+`"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
+"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my
+ tail.
+See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
+They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the
+dance?
+
+Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
+dance?
+Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
+dance?
+
+
+"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
+When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to
+                                                      sea!"
+But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look
+                                                       askance--
+Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the
+   dance.
+    Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join
+        the dance.
+    Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join
+        the dance.
+
+`"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
+"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
+The further off from England the nearer is to France--
+Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
+
+    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
+         dance?
+    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
+         dance?"'
+
+
+
+  `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said
+Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last:  `and I do so
+like that curious song about the whiting!'
+
+  `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've
+seen them, of course?'
+
+  `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she
+checked herself hastily.
+
+  `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but
+if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're
+like.'
+
+  `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully.  `They have their
+tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.'
+
+  `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle:
+`crumbs would all wash off in the sea.  But they HAVE their tails
+in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle
+yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all
+that,' he said to the Gryphon.
+
+  `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with
+the lobsters to the dance.  So they got thrown out to sea.  So
+they had to fall a long way.  So they got their tails fast in
+their mouths.  So they couldn't get them out again.  That's all.'
+
+  `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting.  I never knew
+so much about a whiting before.'
+
+  `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the
+Gryphon.  `Do you know why it's called a whiting?'
+
+  `I never thought about it,' said Alice.  `Why?'
+
+  `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very
+solemnly.
+
+  Alice was thoroughly puzzled.  `Does the boots and shoes!' she
+repeated in a wondering tone.
+
+  `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon.  `I
+mean, what makes them so shiny?'
+
+  Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she
+gave her answer.  `They're done with blacking, I believe.'
+
+  `Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep
+voice, `are done with a whiting.  Now you know.'
+
+  `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great
+curiosity.
+
+  `Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather
+impatiently:  `any shrimp could have told you that.'
+
+  `If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were
+still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep
+back, please:  we don't want YOU with us!"'
+
+  `They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle
+said:  `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.'
+
+  `Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise.
+
+  `Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle:  `why, if a fish came
+to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With
+what porpoise?"'
+
+  `Don't you mean "purpose"?' said Alice.
+
+  `I mean what I say,' the Mock Turtle replied in an offended
+tone.  And the Gryphon added `Come, let's hear some of YOUR
+adventures.'
+
+  `I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,'
+said Alice a little timidly:  `but it's no use going back to
+yesterday, because I was a different person then.'
+
+  `Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `No, no!  The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an
+impatient tone:  `explanations take such a dreadful time.'
+
+  So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when
+she first saw the White Rabbit.  She was a little nervous about
+it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on
+each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so VERY wide, but she
+gained courage as she went on.  Her listeners were perfectly
+quiet till she got to the part about her repeating `YOU ARE OLD,
+FATHER WILLIAM,' to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming
+different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said
+`That's very curious.'
+
+  `It's all about as curious as it can be,' said the Gryphon.
+
+  `It all came different!' the Mock Turtle repeated
+thoughtfully.  `I should like to hear her try and repeat
+something now.  Tell her to begin.'  He looked at the Gryphon as
+if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.
+
+  `Stand up and repeat "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,"' said
+the Gryphon.
+
+  `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat
+lessons!' thought Alice; `I might as well be at school at once.'
+However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so
+full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was
+saying, and the words came very queer indeed:--
+
+    `'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
+    "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
+    As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
+    Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'
+
+              [later editions continued as follows
+    When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
+    And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
+    But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
+    His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]
+
+  `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,'
+said the Gryphon.
+
+  `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it
+sounds uncommon nonsense.'
+
+  Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her
+hands, wondering if anything would EVER happen in a natural way
+again.
+
+  `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle.
+
+  `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily.  `Go on with
+the next verse.'
+
+  `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted.  `How COULD
+he turn them out with his nose, you know?'
+
+  `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was
+dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the
+subject.
+
+  `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated impatiently:
+`it begins "I passed by his garden."'
+
+  Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would
+all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:--
+
+    `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
+    How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--'
+
+        [later editions continued as follows
+    The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
+    While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.
+    When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
+    Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
+    While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
+    And concluded the banquet--]
+
+  `What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,' the Mock Turtle
+interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on?  It's by far
+the most confusing thing I ever heard!'
+
+  `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon:  and
+Alice was only too glad to do so.
+
+  `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the
+Gryphon went on.  `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you
+a song?'
+
+  `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,'
+Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather
+offended tone, `Hm!  No accounting for tastes!  Sing her
+"Turtle Soup," will you, old fellow?'
+
+  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes
+choked with sobs, to sing this:--
+
+
+    `Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
+    Waiting in a hot tureen!
+    Who for such dainties would not stoop?
+    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
+    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
+        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
+        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
+    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
+        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
+
+    `Beautiful Soup!  Who cares for fish,
+    Game, or any other dish?
+    Who would not give all else for two
+    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
+    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
+        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
+        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
+    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
+        Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!'
+
+  `Chorus again!' cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had
+just begun to repeat it, when a cry of `The trial's beginning!'
+was heard in the distance.
+
+  `Come on!' cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand,
+it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.
+
+  `What trial is it?' Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon
+only answered `Come on!' and ran the faster, while more and more
+faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the
+melancholy words:--
+
+    `Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
+        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!'
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER XI
+
+#                       Who Stole the Tarts?
+
+
+  The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when
+they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them--all sorts
+of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards:
+the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on
+each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit,
+with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the
+other.  In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large
+dish of tarts upon it:  they looked so good, that it made Alice
+quite hungry to look at them--`I wish they'd get the trial done,'
+she thought, `and hand round the refreshments!'  But there seemed
+to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about
+her, to pass away the time.
+
+  Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had
+read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that
+she knew the name of nearly everything there.  `That's the
+judge,' she said to herself, `because of his great wig.'
+
+  The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown
+over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he
+did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly
+not becoming.
+
+  `And that's the jury-box,' thought Alice, `and those twelve
+creatures,' (she was obliged to say `creatures,' you see, because
+some of them were animals, and some were birds,) `I suppose they
+are the jurors.'  She said this last word two or three times over
+to herself, being rather proud of it:  for she thought, and
+rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the
+meaning of it at all.  However, `jury-men' would have done just
+as well.
+
+  The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates.
+`What are they doing?'  Alice whispered to the Gryphon.  `They
+can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'
+
+  `They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in
+reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the
+trial.'
+
+  `Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but
+she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in
+the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked
+anxiously round, to make out who was talking.
+
+  Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their
+shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!'
+on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them
+didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his
+neighbour to tell him.  `A nice muddle their slates'll be in
+before the trial's over!' thought Alice.
+
+  One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked.  This of course,
+Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got
+behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it
+away.  She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was
+Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of
+it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write
+with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very
+little use, as it left no mark on the slate.
+
+  `Herald, read the accusation!' said the King.
+
+  On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and
+then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:--
+
+    `The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
+          All on a summer day:
+      The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
+          And took them quite away!'
+
+  `Consider your verdict,' the King said to the jury.
+
+  `Not yet, not yet!' the Rabbit hastily interrupted.  `There's
+a great deal to come before that!'
+
+  `Call the first witness,' said the King; and the White Rabbit
+blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, `First
+witness!'
+
+  The first witness was the Hatter.  He came in with a teacup in
+one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other.  `I beg
+pardon, your Majesty,' he began, `for bringing these in:  but I
+hadn't quite finished my tea when I was sent for.'
+
+  `You ought to have finished,' said the King.  `When did you
+begin?'
+
+  The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into
+the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse.  `Fourteenth of March, I
+think it was,' he said.
+
+  `Fifteenth,' said the March Hare.
+
+  `Sixteenth,' added the Dormouse.
+
+  `Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury
+eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then
+added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
+
+  `Take off your hat,' the King said to the Hatter.
+
+  `It isn't mine,' said the Hatter.
+
+  `Stolen!' the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who
+instantly made a memorandum of the fact.
+
+  `I keep them to sell,' the Hatter added as an explanation;
+`I've none of my own.  I'm a hatter.'
+
+  Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the
+Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.
+
+  `Give your evidence,' said the King; `and don't be nervous, or
+I'll have you executed on the spot.'
+
+  This did not seem to encourage the witness at all:  he kept
+shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the
+Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his
+teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.
+
+  Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which
+puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was:  she was
+beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she
+would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she
+decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for
+her.
+
+  `I wish you wouldn't squeeze so.' said the Dormouse, who was
+sitting next to her.  `I can hardly breathe.'
+
+  `I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly:  `I'm growing.'
+
+  `You've no right to grow here,' said the Dormouse.
+
+  `Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more boldly:  `you know
+you're growing too.'
+
+  `Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,' said the Dormouse:
+`not in that ridiculous fashion.'  And he got up very sulkily
+and crossed over to the other side of the court.
+
+  All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the
+Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to
+one of the officers of the court, `Bring me the list of the
+singers in the last concert!' on which the wretched Hatter
+trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
+
+  `Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have
+you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'
+
+  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a
+trembling voice, `--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week
+or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and
+the twinkling of the tea--'
+
+  `The twinkling of the what?' said the King.
+
+  `It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied.
+
+  `Of course twinkling begins with a T!' said the King sharply.
+`Do you take me for a dunce?  Go on!'
+
+  `I'm a poor man,' the Hatter went on, `and most things
+twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--'
+
+  `I didn't!' the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.
+
+  `You did!' said the Hatter.
+
+  `I deny it!' said the March Hare.
+
+  `He denies it,' said the King:  `leave out that part.'
+
+  `Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--' the Hatter went on,
+looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too:  but the
+Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
+
+  `After that,' continued the Hatter, `I cut some more bread-
+and-butter--'
+
+  `But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked.
+
+  `That I can't remember,' said the Hatter.
+
+  `You MUST remember,' remarked the King, `or I'll have you
+executed.'
+
+  The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter,
+and went down on one knee.  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' he
+began.
+
+  `You're a very poor speaker,' said the King.
+
+  Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately
+suppressed by the officers of the court.  (As that is rather a
+hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done.  They had
+a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings:
+into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat
+upon it.)
+
+  `I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice.  `I've so often
+read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some
+attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the
+officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant
+till now.'
+
+  `If that's all you know about it, you may stand down,'
+continued the King.
+
+  `I can't go no lower,' said the Hatter:  `I'm on the floor, as
+it is.'
+
+  `Then you may SIT down,' the King replied.
+
+  Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.
+
+  `Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!' thought Alice.  `Now we
+shall get on better.'
+
+  `I'd rather finish my tea,' said the Hatter, with an anxious
+look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.
+
+  `You may go,' said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the
+court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.
+
+  `--and just take his head off outside,' the Queen added to one
+of the officers:  but the Hatter was out of sight before the
+officer could get to the door.
+
+  `Call the next witness!' said the King.
+
+  The next witness was the Duchess's cook.  She carried the
+pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before
+she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began
+sneezing all at once.
+
+  `Give your evidence,' said the King.
+
+  `Shan't,' said the cook.
+
+  The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a
+low voice, `Your Majesty must cross-examine THIS witness.'
+
+  `Well, if I must, I must,' the King said, with a melancholy
+air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till
+his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, `What
+are tarts made of?'
+
+  `Pepper, mostly,' said the cook.
+
+  `Treacle,' said a sleepy voice behind her.
+
+  `Collar that Dormouse,' the Queen shrieked out.  `Behead that
+Dormouse!  Turn that Dormouse out of court!  Suppress him!  Pinch
+him!  Off with his whiskers!'
+
+  For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the
+Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down
+again, the cook had disappeared.
+
+  `Never mind!' said the King, with an air of great relief.
+`Call the next witness.'  And he added in an undertone to the
+Queen, `Really, my dear, YOU must cross-examine the next witness.
+It quite makes my forehead ache!'
+
+  Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list,
+feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like,
+`--for they haven't got much evidence YET,' she said to herself.
+Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top
+of his shrill little voice, the name `Alice!'
+
+
+
+#                            CHAPTER XII
+
+#                         Alice's Evidence
+
+
+  `Here!' cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the
+moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she
+jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with
+the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads
+of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding
+her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset
+the week before.
+
+  `Oh, I BEG your pardon!' she exclaimed in a tone of great
+dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could,
+for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and
+she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once
+and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.
+
+  `The trial cannot proceed,' said the King in a very grave
+voice, `until all the jurymen are back in their proper places--
+ALL,' he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as
+he said do.
+
+  Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she
+had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing
+was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable
+to move.  She soon got it out again, and put it right; `not that
+it signifies much,' she said to herself; `I should think it
+would be QUITE as much use in the trial one way up as the other.'
+
+  As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of
+being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and
+handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write
+out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed
+too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open,
+gazing up into the roof of the court.
+
+  `What do you know about this business?' the King said to
+Alice.
+
+  `Nothing,' said Alice.
+
+  `Nothing WHATEVER?' persisted the King.
+
+  `Nothing whatever,' said Alice.
+
+  `That's very important,' the King said, turning to the jury.
+They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when
+the White Rabbit interrupted:  `UNimportant, your Majesty means,
+of course,' he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and
+making faces at him as he spoke.
+
+  `UNimportant, of course, I meant,' the King hastily said, and
+went on to himself in an undertone, `important--unimportant--
+unimportant--important--' as if he were trying which word
+sounded best.
+
+  Some of the jury wrote it down `important,' and some
+`unimportant.'  Alice could see this, as she was near enough to
+look over their slates; `but it doesn't matter a bit,' she
+thought to herself.
+
+  At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily
+writing in his note-book, cackled out `Silence!' and read out
+from his book, `Rule Forty-two.  ALL PERSONS MORE THAN A MILE
+HIGH TO LEAVE THE COURT.'
+
+  Everybody looked at Alice.
+
+  `I'M not a mile high,' said Alice.
+
+  `You are,' said the King.
+
+  `Nearly two miles high,' added the Queen.
+
+  `Well, I shan't go, at any rate,' said Alice:  `besides,
+that's not a regular rule:  you invented it just now.'
+
+  `It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.
+
+  `Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.
+
+  The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily.
+`Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling
+voice.
+
+  `There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said
+the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has
+just been picked up.'
+
+  `What's in it?' said the Queen.
+
+  `I haven't opened it yet,' said the White Rabbit, `but it seems
+to be a letter, written by the prisoner to--to somebody.'
+
+  `It must have been that,' said the King, `unless it was
+written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know.'
+
+  `Who is it directed to?' said one of the jurymen.
+
+  `It isn't directed at all,' said the White Rabbit; `in fact,
+there's nothing written on the OUTSIDE.'  He unfolded the paper
+as he spoke, and added `It isn't a letter, after all:  it's a set
+of verses.'
+
+  `Are they in the prisoner's handwriting?' asked another of
+the jurymen.
+
+  `No, they're not,' said the White Rabbit, `and that's the
+queerest thing about it.'  (The jury all looked puzzled.)
+
+  `He must have imitated somebody else's hand,' said the King.
+(The jury all brightened up again.)
+
+  `Please your Majesty,' said the Knave, `I didn't write it, and
+they can't prove I did:  there's no name signed at the end.'
+
+  `If you didn't sign it,' said the King, `that only makes the
+matter worse.  You MUST have meant some mischief, or else you'd
+have signed your name like an honest man.'
+
+  There was a general clapping of hands at this:  it was the
+first really clever thing the King had said that day.
+
+  `That PROVES his guilt,' said the Queen.
+
+  `It proves nothing of the sort!' said Alice.  `Why, you don't
+even know what they're about!'
+
+  `Read them,' said the King.
+
+  The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.  `Where shall I begin,
+please your Majesty?' he asked.
+
+  `Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on
+till you come to the end:  then stop.'
+
+  These were the verses the White Rabbit read:--
+
+        `They told me you had been to her,
+          And mentioned me to him:
+        She gave me a good character,
+          But said I could not swim.
+
+        He sent them word I had not gone
+          (We know it to be true):
+        If she should push the matter on,
+          What would become of you?
+
+        I gave her one, they gave him two,
+          You gave us three or more;
+        They all returned from him to you,
+          Though they were mine before.
+
+        If I or she should chance to be
+          Involved in this affair,
+        He trusts to you to set them free,
+          Exactly as we were.
+
+        My notion was that you had been
+          (Before she had this fit)
+        An obstacle that came between
+          Him, and ourselves, and it.
+
+        Don't let him know she liked them best,
+          For this must ever be
+        A secret, kept from all the rest,
+          Between yourself and me.'
+
+  `That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet,'
+said the King, rubbing his hands; `so now let the jury--'
+
+  `If any one of them can explain it,' said Alice, (she had
+grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit
+afraid of interrupting him,) `I'll give him sixpence.  _I_ don't
+believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'
+
+  The jury all wrote down on their slates, `SHE doesn't believe
+there's an atom of meaning in it,' but none of them attempted to
+explain the paper.
+
+  `If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a
+world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.  And
+yet I don't know,' he went on, spreading out the verses on his
+knee, and looking at them with one eye; `I seem to see some
+meaning in them, after all.  "--SAID I COULD NOT SWIM--" you
+can't swim, can you?' he added, turning to the Knave.
+
+  The Knave shook his head sadly.  `Do I look like it?' he said.
+(Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)
+
+  `All right, so far,' said the King, and he went on muttering
+over the verses to himself:  `"WE KNOW IT TO BE TRUE--" that's
+the jury, of course-- "I GAVE HER ONE, THEY GAVE HIM TWO--" why,
+that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--'
+
+  `But, it goes on "THEY ALL RETURNED FROM HIM TO YOU,"' said
+Alice.
+
+  `Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to
+the tarts on the table.  `Nothing can be clearer than THAT.
+Then again--"BEFORE SHE HAD THIS FIT--"  you never had fits, my
+dear, I think?' he said to the Queen.
+
+  `Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the
+Lizard as she spoke.  (The unfortunate little Bill had left off
+writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no
+mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was
+trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)
+
+  `Then the words don't FIT you,' said the King, looking round
+the court with a smile.  There was a dead silence.
+
+  `It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and
+everybody laughed, `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the
+King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
+
+  `No, no!' said the Queen.  `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'
+
+  `Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly.  `The idea of having
+the sentence first!'
+
+  `Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.
+
+  `I won't!' said Alice.
+
+  `Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
+Nobody moved.
+
+  `Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full
+size by this time.)  `You're nothing but a pack of cards!'
+
+  At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying
+down upon her:  she gave a little scream, half of fright and half
+of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on
+the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently
+brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the
+trees upon her face.
+
+  `Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long
+sleep you've had!'
+
+  `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told
+her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange
+Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and
+when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, `It WAS a
+curious dream, dear, certainly:  but now run in to your tea; it's
+getting late.'  So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she
+ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.
+
+  But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her
+head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of
+little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began
+dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:--
+
+  First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the
+tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes
+were looking up into hers--she could hear the very tones of her
+voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back
+the wandering hair that WOULD always get into her eyes--and
+still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place
+around her became alive the strange creatures of her little
+sister's dream.
+
+  The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried
+by--the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the
+neighbouring pool--she could hear the rattle of the teacups as
+the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal,
+and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate
+guests to execution--once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the
+Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it--once
+more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's
+slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs,
+filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable
+Mock Turtle.
+
+  So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in
+Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and
+all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only
+rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the
+reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-
+bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd
+boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and
+all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the
+confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the
+cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's
+heavy sobs.
+
+  Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of
+hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how
+she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and
+loving heart of her childhood:  and how she would gather about
+her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager
+with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of
+Wonderland of long ago:  and how she would feel with all their
+simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
+remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
+
+#                              THE END