odin 0.0.4

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  1. data/.gitignore +19 -0
  2. data/.rvmrc +1 -0
  3. data/.travis.yml +2 -0
  4. data/Gemfile +4 -0
  5. data/Gemfile.lock +26 -0
  6. data/HISTORY.md +102 -0
  7. data/LICENSE.md +10 -0
  8. data/README.md +46 -0
  9. data/Rakefile +69 -0
  10. data/app/controllers/grammar_checker.rb +51 -0
  11. data/check_grammar.rb +24 -0
  12. data/configure +9 -0
  13. data/images/atn_diagram.graffle +0 -0
  14. data/images/atn_diagram.pdf +0 -0
  15. data/images/odin-ff6.gif +0 -0
  16. data/lang/en/adjectives.rb +388 -0
  17. data/lang/en/atn.rb +102 -0
  18. data/lang/en/closed_class_words.rb +206 -0
  19. data/lang/en/data.rb +1086 -0
  20. data/lang/en/noun_inflections.rb +76 -0
  21. data/lang/en/noun_inflector_test_cases.rb +235 -0
  22. data/lang/en/pronoun_inflector_test_cases.rb +14 -0
  23. data/lang/en/verbs.rb +648 -0
  24. data/lang/iso639.rb +405 -0
  25. data/lib/array.rb +15 -0
  26. data/lib/atn.rb +82 -0
  27. data/lib/augmented_transition_network.rb +146 -0
  28. data/lib/dumper.rb +44 -0
  29. data/lib/noun_inflector.rb +283 -0
  30. data/lib/odin.rb +3 -0
  31. data/lib/odin/version.rb +3 -0
  32. data/lib/parts_of_speech.rb +402 -0
  33. data/lib/star.rb +23 -0
  34. data/lib/string.rb +99 -0
  35. data/lib/string_bracketing.rb +100 -0
  36. data/lib/word.rb +69 -0
  37. data/lib/word_net.rb +265 -0
  38. data/odin.gemspec +27 -0
  39. data/simple_atn/README.md +45 -0
  40. data/simple_atn/Rakefile +9 -0
  41. data/simple_atn/array.rb +15 -0
  42. data/simple_atn/augmented_transition_network.rb +146 -0
  43. data/simple_atn/augmented_transition_network_test.rb +113 -0
  44. data/simple_atn/english.rb +161 -0
  45. data/simple_atn/string.rb +63 -0
  46. data/test/fixtures/alice.txt +3594 -0
  47. data/test/fixtures/art.txt +7 -0
  48. data/test/fixtures/both.txt +1 -0
  49. data/test/fixtures/existing.txt +0 -0
  50. data/test/fixtures/existing.txt.checked.html +0 -0
  51. data/test/fixtures/grammar_checker.css +4 -0
  52. data/test/fixtures/grammatical.txt +1 -0
  53. data/test/fixtures/ungrammatical.txt +1 -0
  54. data/test/functional/grammar_checker_test.rb +64 -0
  55. data/test/integration/en/word_and_noun_inflector_test.rb +29 -0
  56. data/test/test_helper.rb +82 -0
  57. data/test/unit/atn_test.rb +240 -0
  58. data/test/unit/noun_inflector_test.rb +249 -0
  59. data/test/unit/pronoun_inflector_test.rb +17 -0
  60. data/test/unit/star_test.rb +24 -0
  61. data/test/unit/string_bracketing_test_module.rb +70 -0
  62. data/test/unit/string_test.rb +92 -0
  63. data/test/unit/word_test.rb +15 -0
  64. metadata +223 -0
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
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+ class String
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+ def adjective?
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+ 'old' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def determiner?
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+ 'the' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def noun?
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+ case self
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+ when 'man', 'avocados', 'cookie', 'monster', 'street'
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+ true
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+ else
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+ false
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+ end
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+ end
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+
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+ def present_participle?
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+ 'smiling' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def past_participle?
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+ 'eaten' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def preposition?
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+ 'in' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def preterite
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+ if 'eaten' == self
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+ return 'ate'
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+ else
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+ return self
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+ end
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+ end
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+
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+ def pronoun?
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+ 'you' == self
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+ end
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+
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+ def verb?
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+ case self
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+ when 'grows', 'eat', 'ate', 'was'
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+ true
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+ else
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+ false
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+ end
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+ end
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+
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+ def matches_for(pattern)
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+ matches = []
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+ self.gsub(pattern) do |match|
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+ matches << match
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+ end
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+ return matches
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+ end
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+
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+ def number_in_quotes
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+ matches_for(/".*?"/).length
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+ end
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+ end
@@ -0,0 +1,3594 @@
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+ ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
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+
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+ Lewis Carroll
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+
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+ CHAPTER I
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+
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+ Down the Rabbit-Hole
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+
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+
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+ Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
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+ on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had
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+ peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
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+ pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
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+ thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
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+
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+ So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could,
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+ for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether
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+ the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble
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+ of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White
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+ Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
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+
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+ There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice
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+ think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to
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+ itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought
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+ it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have
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+ wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural);
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+ but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-
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+ POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to
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+ her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never
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+ before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to
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+ take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the
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+ field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop
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+ down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
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+
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+ In another moment down went Alice after it, never once
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+ considering how in the world she was to get out again.
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+
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+ The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way,
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+ and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a
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+ moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself
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+ falling down a very deep well.
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+
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+ Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
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+ had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
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+ wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look
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+ down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
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+ see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
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+ noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
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+ here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She
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+ took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
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+ labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
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+ was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
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+ somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
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+ fell past it.
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+
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+ `Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I
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+ shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll
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+ all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it,
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+ even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely
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+ true.)
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+
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+ Down, down, down. Would the fall NEVER come to an end! `I
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+ wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud.
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+ `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let
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+ me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for,
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+ you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her
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+ lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good
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+ opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to
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+ listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes,
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+ that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude
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+ or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had no idea what Latitude was,
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+ or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to
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+ say.)
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+
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+ Presently she began again. `I wonder if I shall fall right
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+ THROUGH the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the
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+ people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I
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+ think--' (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this
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+ time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) `--but I shall
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+ have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
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+ Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried
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+ to curtsey as she spoke--fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling
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+ through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) `And what
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+ an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll
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+ never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
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+
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+ Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon
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+ began talking again. `Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I
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+ should think!' (Dinah was the cat.) `I hope they'll remember
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+ her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were
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+ down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but
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+ you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know.
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+ But do cats eat bats, I wonder?' And here Alice began to get
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+ rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of
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+ way, `Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do
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+ bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
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+ question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt
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+ that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she
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+ was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
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+ earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a
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+ bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
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+ sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
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+
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+ Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a
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+ moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her
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+ was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
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+ sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost:
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+ away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it
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+ say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
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+ it's getting!' She was close behind it when she turned the
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+ corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found
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+ herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
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+ hanging from the roof.
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+
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+ There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked;
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+ and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the
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+ other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
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+ wondering how she was ever to get out again.
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+
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+ Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
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+ solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key,
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+ and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the
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+ doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or
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+ the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of
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+ them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low
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+ curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little
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+ door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key
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+ in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
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+
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+ Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small
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+ passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and
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+ looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
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+ How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about
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+ among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
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+ she could not even get her head though the doorway; `and even if
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+ my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of
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+ very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish
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+ I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only
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+ know how to begin.' For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
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+ had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
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+ things indeed were really impossible.
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+
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+ There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she
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+ went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on
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+ it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like
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+ telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which
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+ certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck
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+ of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME'
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+ beautifully printed on it in large letters.
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+
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+ It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little
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+ Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry. `No, I'll look
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+ first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not';
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+ for she had read several nice little histories about children who
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+ had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant
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+ things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules
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+ their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker
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+ will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your
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+ finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
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+ never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
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+ `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or
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+ later.
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+
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+ However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured
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+ to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort
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+ of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
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+ turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished
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+ it off.
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+
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+ * * * * * * *
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+
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+ * * * * * *
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+
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+ * * * * * * *
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+
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+ `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up
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+ like a telescope.'
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+
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+ And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and
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+ her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right
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+ size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
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+ First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was
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+ going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about
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+ this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my
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+ going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be
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+ like then?' And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is
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+ like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember
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+ ever having seen such a thing.
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+
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+ After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided
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+ on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice!
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+ when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the
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+ little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it,
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+ she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it
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+ quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb
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+ up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery;
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+ and when she had tired herself out with trying,
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+ the poor little thing sat down and cried.
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+
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+ `Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to
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+ herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!'
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+ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very
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+ seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so
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+ severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered
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+ trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game
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+ of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious
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+ child was very fond of pretending to be two people. `But it's no
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+ use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why,
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+ there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable
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+ person!'
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+
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+ Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under
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+ the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on
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+ which the words `EAT ME' were beautifully marked in currants.
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+ `Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, `and if it makes me grow larger,
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+ I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep
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+ under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I
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+ don't care which happens!'
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+
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+ She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which
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+ way? Which way?', holding her hand on the top of her head to
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+ feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to
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+ find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally
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+ happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the
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+ way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen,
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+ that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the
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+ common way.
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+
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+ So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.
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+
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+ * * * * * * *
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+
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+ * * * * * *
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+
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+ * * * * * * *
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+ CHAPTER II
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+
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+ The Pool of Tears
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+
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+
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+ `Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
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+ surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
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+ English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that
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+ ever was! Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her
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+ feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so
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+ far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
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+ your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure _I_ shan't
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+ be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself
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+ about you: you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be
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+ kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the
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+ way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of
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+ boots every Christmas.'
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+
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+ And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
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+ `They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll
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+ seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the
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+ directions will look!
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+
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+ ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
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+ HEARTHRUG,
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+ NEAR THE FENDER,
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+ (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).
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+
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+ Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'
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+
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+ Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in
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+ fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took
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+ up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
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+
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+ Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
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+ side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get
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+ through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to
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+ cry again.
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+
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+ `You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
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+ girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in
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+ this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all
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+ the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool
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+ all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the
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+ hall.
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+
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+ After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
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+ distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
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+ It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a
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+ pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the
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+ other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to
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+ himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she
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+ be savage if I've kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate
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+ that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit
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+ came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please,
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+ sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid
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+ gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard
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+ as he could go.
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+
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+ Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
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+ hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking:
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+ `Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday
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+ things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in
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+ the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this
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+ morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little
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+ different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in
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+ the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' And she began
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+ thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age
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+ as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
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+ them.
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+
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+ `I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
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+ long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm
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+ sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
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+ oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I,
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+ and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the
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+ things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve,
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+ and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
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+ I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the
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+ Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography.
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+ London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome,
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+ and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been
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+ changed for Mabel! I'll try and say "How doth the little--"'
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+ and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons,
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+ and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
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+ strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:--
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+
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+ `How doth the little crocodile
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+ Improve his shining tail,
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+ And pour the waters of the Nile
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+ On every golden scale!
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+
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+ `How cheerfully he seems to grin,
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+ How neatly spread his claws,
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+ And welcome little fishes in
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+ With gently smiling jaws!'
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+
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+ `I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
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+ her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel
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+ after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
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+ house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so
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+ many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm
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+ Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their
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+ heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look
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+ up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I
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+ like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down
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+ here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a
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+ sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads
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+ down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!'
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+
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+ As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was
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+ surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
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+ white kid gloves while she was talking. `How CAN I have done
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+ that?' she thought. `I must be growing small again.' She got up
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+ and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that,
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+ as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
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+ and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the
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+ cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
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+ hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
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+
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+ `That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at
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+ the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in
362
+ existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed
363
+ back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut
364
+ again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as
365
+ before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child,
366
+ `for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare
367
+ it's too bad, that it is!'
368
+
369
+ As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another
370
+ moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first
371
+ idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that
372
+ case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. (Alice had
373
+ been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
374
+ conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find
375
+ a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in
376
+ the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
377
+ behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that
378
+ she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
379
+ feet high.
380
+
381
+ `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
382
+ trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I
383
+ suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a queer
384
+ thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.'
385
+
386
+ Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
387
+ little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at
388
+ first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then
389
+ she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that
390
+ it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
391
+
392
+ `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
393
+ mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should
394
+ think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in
395
+ trying.' So she began: `O Mouse, do you know the way out of
396
+ this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'
397
+ (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse:
398
+ she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having
399
+ seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a
400
+ mouse--a mouse--O mouse!' The Mouse looked at her rather
401
+ inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little
402
+ eyes, but it said nothing.
403
+
404
+ `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I
405
+ daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the
406
+ Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had
407
+ no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she
408
+ began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in
409
+ her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the
410
+ water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg
411
+ your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the
412
+ poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'
413
+
414
+ `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
415
+ voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'
416
+
417
+ `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be
418
+ angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah:
419
+ I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
420
+ She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself,
421
+ as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so
422
+ nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and
423
+ she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital
424
+ one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again,
425
+ for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt
426
+ certain it must be really offended. `We won't talk about her any
427
+ more if you'd rather not.'
428
+
429
+ `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end
430
+ of his tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family
431
+ always HATED cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear
432
+ the name again!'
433
+
434
+ `I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
435
+ subject of conversation. `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?'
436
+ The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: `There is
437
+ such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you!
438
+ A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly
439
+ brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and
440
+ it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I
441
+ can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
442
+ know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!
443
+ He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a
444
+ sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!' For the
445
+ Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
446
+ making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.
447
+
448
+ So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear! Do come back
449
+ again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
450
+ like them!' When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam
451
+ slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice
452
+ thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, `Let us get to
453
+ the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll
454
+ understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.'
455
+
456
+ It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
457
+ with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a
458
+ Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious
459
+ creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the
460
+ shore.
461
+
462
+
463
+
464
+ CHAPTER III
465
+
466
+ A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
467
+
468
+
469
+ They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the
470
+ bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their
471
+ fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
472
+ uncomfortable.
473
+
474
+ The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they
475
+ had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed
476
+ quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with
477
+ them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had
478
+ quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky,
479
+ and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better';
480
+ and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was,
481
+ and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no
482
+ more to be said.
483
+
484
+ At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among
485
+ them, called out, `Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'LL
486
+ soon make you dry enough!' They all sat down at once, in a large
487
+ ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes
488
+ anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad
489
+ cold if she did not get dry very soon.
490
+
491
+ `Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready?
492
+ This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please!
493
+ "William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was
494
+ soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been
495
+ of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and
496
+ Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'
497
+
498
+ `Ugh!' said the Lory, with a shiver.
499
+
500
+ `I beg your pardon!' said the Mouse, frowning, but very
501
+ politely: `Did you speak?'
502
+
503
+ `Not I!' said the Lory hastily.
504
+
505
+ `I thought you did,' said the Mouse. `--I proceed. "Edwin and
506
+ Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him:
507
+ and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found
508
+ it advisable--"'
509
+
510
+ `Found WHAT?' said the Duck.
511
+
512
+ `Found IT,' the Mouse replied rather crossly: `of course you
513
+ know what "it" means.'
514
+
515
+ `I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said
516
+ the Duck: `it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is,
517
+ what did the archbishop find?'
518
+
519
+ The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on,
520
+ `"--found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William
521
+ and offer him the crown. William's conduct at first was
522
+ moderate. But the insolence of his Normans--" How are you
523
+ getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it
524
+ spoke.
525
+
526
+ `As wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone: `it doesn't
527
+ seem to dry me at all.'
528
+
529
+ `In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, `I
530
+ move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
531
+ energetic remedies--'
532
+
533
+ `Speak English!' said the Eaglet. `I don't know the meaning of
534
+ half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do
535
+ either!' And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile:
536
+ some of the other birds tittered audibly.
537
+
538
+ `What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone,
539
+ `was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'
540
+
541
+ `What IS a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much
542
+ to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY
543
+ ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
544
+
545
+ `Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.'
546
+ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter
547
+ day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
548
+
549
+ First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the
550
+ exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party
551
+ were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One,
552
+ two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked,
553
+ and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know
554
+ when the race was over. However, when they had been running half
555
+ an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called
556
+ out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting,
557
+ and asking, `But who has won?'
558
+
559
+ This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of
560
+ thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon
561
+ its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare,
562
+ in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At
563
+ last the Dodo said, `EVERYBODY has won, and all must have
564
+ prizes.'
565
+
566
+ `But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices
567
+ asked.
568
+
569
+ `Why, SHE, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with
570
+ one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her,
571
+ calling out in a confused way, `Prizes! Prizes!'
572
+
573
+ Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand
574
+ in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt
575
+ water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes.
576
+ There was exactly one a-piece all round.
577
+
578
+ `But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse.
579
+
580
+ `Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely. `What else have
581
+ you got in your pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice.
582
+
583
+ `Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly.
584
+
585
+ `Hand it over here,' said the Dodo.
586
+
587
+ Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo
588
+ solemnly presented the thimble, saying `We beg your acceptance of
589
+ this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short
590
+ speech, they all cheered.
591
+
592
+ Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked
593
+ so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not
594
+ think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble,
595
+ looking as solemn as she could.
596
+
597
+ The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise
598
+ and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not
599
+ taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on
600
+ the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again
601
+ in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
602
+
603
+ `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice,
604
+ `and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half
605
+ afraid that it would be offended again.
606
+
607
+ `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to
608
+ Alice, and sighing.
609
+
610
+ `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with
611
+ wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?' And
612
+ she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so
613
+ that her idea of the tale was something like this:--
614
+
615
+ `Fury said to a
616
+ mouse, That he
617
+ met in the
618
+ house,
619
+ "Let us
620
+ both go to
621
+ law: I will
622
+ prosecute
623
+ YOU. --Come,
624
+ I'll take no
625
+ denial; We
626
+ must have a
627
+ trial: For
628
+ really this
629
+ morning I've
630
+ nothing
631
+ to do."
632
+ Said the
633
+ mouse to the
634
+ cur, "Such
635
+ a trial,
636
+ dear Sir,
637
+ With
638
+ no jury
639
+ or judge,
640
+ would be
641
+ wasting
642
+ our
643
+ breath."
644
+ "I'll be
645
+ judge, I'll
646
+ be jury,"
647
+ Said
648
+ cunning
649
+ old Fury:
650
+ "I'll
651
+ try the
652
+ whole
653
+ cause,
654
+ and
655
+ condemn
656
+ you
657
+ to
658
+ death."'
659
+
660
+
661
+ `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely.
662
+ `What are you thinking of?'
663
+
664
+ `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly: `you had got to
665
+ the fifth bend, I think?'
666
+
667
+ `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
668
+
669
+ `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
670
+ looking anxiously about her. `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'
671
+
672
+ `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up
673
+ and walking away. `You insult me by talking such nonsense!'
674
+
675
+ `I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice. `But you're so easily
676
+ offended, you know!'
677
+
678
+ The Mouse only growled in reply.
679
+
680
+ `Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after
681
+ it; and the others all joined in chorus, `Yes, please do!' but
682
+ the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
683
+ quicker.
684
+
685
+ `What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it
686
+ was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of
687
+ saying to her daughter `Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you
688
+ never to lose YOUR temper!' `Hold your tongue, Ma!' said the
689
+ young Crab, a little snappishly. `You're enough to try the
690
+ patience of an oyster!'
691
+
692
+ `I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud,
693
+ addressing nobody in particular. `She'd soon fetch it back!'
694
+
695
+ `And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?'
696
+ said the Lory.
697
+
698
+ Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about
699
+ her pet: `Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for
700
+ catching mice you can't think! And oh, I wish you could see her
701
+ after the birds! Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look
702
+ at it!'
703
+
704
+ This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party.
705
+ Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began
706
+ wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, `I really must be
707
+ getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my throat!' and a Canary
708
+ called out in a trembling voice to its children, `Come away, my
709
+ dears! It's high time you were all in bed!' On various pretexts
710
+ they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
711
+
712
+ `I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah!' she said to herself in a
713
+ melancholy tone. `Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm
714
+ sure she's the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I
715
+ wonder if I shall ever see you any more!' And here poor Alice
716
+ began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited.
717
+ In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of
718
+ footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping
719
+ that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to
720
+ finish his story.
721
+
722
+
723
+
724
+ CHAPTER IV
725
+
726
+ The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
727
+
728
+
729
+ It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and
730
+ looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something;
731
+ and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess! The Duchess!
732
+ Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me
733
+ executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where CAN I have
734
+ dropped them, I wonder?' Alice guessed in a moment that it was
735
+ looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she
736
+ very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were
737
+ nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her
738
+ swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and
739
+ the little door, had vanished completely.
740
+
741
+ Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about,
742
+ and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE
743
+ you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of
744
+ gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And Alice was so much frightened
745
+ that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
746
+ trying to explain the mistake it had made.
747
+
748
+ `He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran.
749
+ `How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd
750
+ better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'
751
+ As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door
752
+ of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT'
753
+ engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried
754
+ upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann,
755
+ and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and
756
+ gloves.
757
+
758
+ `How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, `to be going
759
+ messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on
760
+ messages next!' And she began fancying the sort of thing that
761
+ would happen: `"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready
762
+ for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see
763
+ that the mouse doesn't get out." Only I don't think,' Alice went
764
+ on, `that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering
765
+ people about like that!'
766
+
767
+ By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with
768
+ a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two
769
+ or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and
770
+ a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when
771
+ her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-
772
+ glass. There was no label this time with the words `DRINK ME,'
773
+ but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. `I know
774
+ SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself,
775
+ `whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this
776
+ bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for
777
+ really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'
778
+
779
+ It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected:
780
+ before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing
781
+ against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
782
+ broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself
783
+ `That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is, I
784
+ can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so
785
+ much!'
786
+
787
+ Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and
788
+ growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in
789
+ another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried
790
+ the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the
791
+ other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and,
792
+ as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one
793
+ foot up the chimney, and said to herself `Now I can do no more,
794
+ whatever happens. What WILL become of me?'
795
+
796
+ Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full
797
+ effect, and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable,
798
+ and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting
799
+ out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.
800
+
801
+ `It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, `when one
802
+ wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about
803
+ by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that
804
+ rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know,
805
+ this sort of life! I do wonder what CAN have happened to me!
806
+ When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing
807
+ never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There
808
+ ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when
809
+ I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm grown up now,' she added in a
810
+ sorrowful tone; `at least there's no room to grow up any more
811
+ HERE.'
812
+
813
+ `But then,' thought Alice, `shall I NEVER get any older than I
814
+ am now? That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--
815
+ but then--always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!'
816
+
817
+ `Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. `How can you
818
+ learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no
819
+ room at all for any lesson-books!'
820
+
821
+ And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other,
822
+ and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few
823
+ minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.
824
+
825
+ `Mary Ann! Mary Ann!' said the voice. `Fetch me my gloves
826
+ this moment!' Then came a little pattering of feet on the
827
+ stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and
828
+ she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she
829
+ was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no
830
+ reason to be afraid of it.
831
+
832
+ Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it;
833
+ but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed
834
+ hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it
835
+ say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.'
836
+
837
+ `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she
838
+ fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly
839
+ spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not
840
+ get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall,
841
+ and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was
842
+ just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something
843
+ of the sort.
844
+
845
+ Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat! Where are
846
+ you?' And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then
847
+ I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!'
848
+
849
+ `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. `Here!
850
+ Come and help me out of THIS!' (Sounds of more broken glass.)
851
+
852
+ `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?'
853
+
854
+ `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!' (He pronounced it `arrum.')
855
+
856
+ `An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it
857
+ fills the whole window!'
858
+
859
+ `Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that.'
860
+
861
+ `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it
862
+ away!'
863
+
864
+ There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear
865
+ whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer
866
+ honour, at all, at all!' `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at
867
+ last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in
868
+ the air. This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more
869
+ sounds of broken glass. `What a number of cucumber-frames there
870
+ must be!' thought Alice. `I wonder what they'll do next! As for
871
+ pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD! I'm sure I
872
+ don't want to stay in here any longer!'
873
+
874
+ She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at
875
+ last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a
876
+ good many voices all talking together: she made out the words:
877
+ `Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one;
878
+ Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up
879
+ at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half
880
+ high enough yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular--
881
+ Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind
882
+ that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down! Heads below!' (a loud
883
+ crash)--`Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's to go
884
+ down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! YOU do it!--That I won't,
885
+ then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to
886
+ go down the chimney!'
887
+
888
+ `Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said
889
+ Alice to herself. `Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill!
890
+ I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: this fireplace is
891
+ narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!'
892
+
893
+ She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and
894
+ waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what
895
+ sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close
896
+ above her: then, saying to herself `This is Bill,' she gave one
897
+ sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.
898
+
899
+ The first thing she heard was a general chorus of `There goes
900
+ Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--`Catch him, you by the
901
+ hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--`Hold
902
+ up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow?
903
+ What happened to you? Tell us all about it!'
904
+
905
+ Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (`That's Bill,'
906
+ thought Alice,) `Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm
907
+ better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know
908
+ is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes
909
+ like a sky-rocket!'
910
+
911
+ `So you did, old fellow!' said the others.
912
+
913
+ `We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and
914
+ Alice called out as loud as she could, `If you do. I'll set
915
+ Dinah at you!'
916
+
917
+ There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to
918
+ herself, `I wonder what they WILL do next! If they had any
919
+ sense, they'd take the roof off.' After a minute or two, they
920
+ began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, `A
921
+ barrowful will do, to begin with.'
922
+
923
+ `A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to
924
+ doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came
925
+ rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face.
926
+ `I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out,
927
+ `You'd better not do that again!' which produced another dead
928
+ silence.
929
+
930
+ Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all
931
+ turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright
932
+ idea came into her head. `If I eat one of these cakes,' she
933
+ thought, `it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it
934
+ can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I
935
+ suppose.'
936
+
937
+ So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find
938
+ that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small
939
+ enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and
940
+ found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside.
941
+ The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by
942
+ two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
943
+ They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she
944
+ ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a
945
+ thick wood.
946
+
947
+ `The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she
948
+ wandered about in the wood, `is to grow to my right size again;
949
+ and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden.
950
+ I think that will be the best plan.'
951
+
952
+ It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and
953
+ simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the
954
+ smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering
955
+ about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over
956
+ her head made her look up in a great hurry.
957
+
958
+ An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round
959
+ eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her.
960
+ `Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried
961
+ hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the
962
+ time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it
963
+ would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.
964
+
965
+ Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of
966
+ stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped
967
+ into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight,
968
+ and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice
969
+ dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run
970
+ over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy
971
+ made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in
972
+ its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very
973
+ like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every
974
+ moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
975
+ again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the
976
+ stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long
977
+ way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat
978
+ down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its
979
+ mouth, and its great eyes half shut.
980
+
981
+ This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape;
982
+ so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out
983
+ of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the
984
+ distance.
985
+
986
+ `And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she
987
+ leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself
988
+ with one of the leaves: `I should have liked teaching it tricks
989
+ very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to do it! Oh
990
+ dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let
991
+ me see--how IS it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or
992
+ drink something or other; but the great question is, what?'
993
+
994
+ The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round
995
+ her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see
996
+ anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under
997
+ the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her,
998
+ about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under
999
+ it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her
1000
+ that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
1001
+
1002
+ She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of
1003
+ the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large
1004
+ caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
1005
+ quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice
1006
+ of her or of anything else.
1007
+
1008
+
1009
+
1010
+ CHAPTER V
1011
+
1012
+ Advice from a Caterpillar
1013
+
1014
+
1015
+ The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in
1016
+ silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
1017
+ mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
1018
+
1019
+ `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.
1020
+
1021
+ This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice
1022
+ replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--
1023
+ at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think
1024
+ I must have been changed several times since then.'
1025
+
1026
+ `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly.
1027
+ `Explain yourself!'
1028
+
1029
+ `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because
1030
+ I'm not myself, you see.'
1031
+
1032
+ `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
1033
+
1034
+ `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very
1035
+ politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and
1036
+ being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'
1037
+
1038
+ `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.
1039
+
1040
+ `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but
1041
+ when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you
1042
+ know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll
1043
+ feel it a little queer, won't you?'
1044
+
1045
+ `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.
1046
+
1047
+ `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice;
1048
+ `all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.'
1049
+
1050
+ `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. `Who are YOU?'
1051
+
1052
+ Which brought them back again to the beginning of the
1053
+ conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's
1054
+ making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said,
1055
+ very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.'
1056
+
1057
+ `Why?' said the Caterpillar.
1058
+
1059
+ Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not
1060
+ think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in
1061
+ a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
1062
+
1063
+ `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. `I've something
1064
+ important to say!'
1065
+
1066
+ This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back
1067
+ again.
1068
+
1069
+ `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.
1070
+
1071
+ `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as
1072
+ she could.
1073
+
1074
+ `No,' said the Caterpillar.
1075
+
1076
+ Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else
1077
+ to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth
1078
+ hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but
1079
+ at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth
1080
+ again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?'
1081
+
1082
+ `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as
1083
+ I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'
1084
+
1085
+ `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar.
1086
+
1087
+ `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it
1088
+ all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
1089
+
1090
+ `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar.
1091
+
1092
+ Alice folded her hands, and began:--
1093
+
1094
+ `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
1095
+ `And your hair has become very white;
1096
+ And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
1097
+ Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
1098
+
1099
+ `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
1100
+ `I feared it might injure the brain;
1101
+ But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
1102
+ Why, I do it again and again.'
1103
+
1104
+ `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before,
1105
+ And have grown most uncommonly fat;
1106
+ Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
1107
+ Pray, what is the reason of that?'
1108
+
1109
+ `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
1110
+ `I kept all my limbs very supple
1111
+ By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
1112
+ Allow me to sell you a couple?'
1113
+
1114
+ `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak
1115
+ For anything tougher than suet;
1116
+ Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
1117
+ Pray how did you manage to do it?'
1118
+
1119
+ `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law,
1120
+ And argued each case with my wife;
1121
+ And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
1122
+ Has lasted the rest of my life.'
1123
+
1124
+ `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose
1125
+ That your eye was as steady as ever;
1126
+ Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
1127
+ What made you so awfully clever?'
1128
+
1129
+ `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
1130
+ Said his father; `don't give yourself airs!
1131
+ Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
1132
+ Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'
1133
+
1134
+
1135
+ `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.
1136
+
1137
+ `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the
1138
+ words have got altered.'
1139
+
1140
+ `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar
1141
+ decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
1142
+
1143
+ The Caterpillar was the first to speak.
1144
+
1145
+ `What size do you want to be?' it asked.
1146
+
1147
+ `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied;
1148
+ `only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.'
1149
+
1150
+ `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar.
1151
+
1152
+ Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in
1153
+ her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.
1154
+
1155
+ `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.
1156
+
1157
+ `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you
1158
+ wouldn't mind,' said Alice: `three inches is such a wretched
1159
+ height to be.'
1160
+
1161
+ `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar
1162
+ angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three
1163
+ inches high).
1164
+
1165
+ `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone.
1166
+ And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so
1167
+ easily offended!'
1168
+
1169
+ `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and it
1170
+ put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
1171
+
1172
+ This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again.
1173
+ In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
1174
+ mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got
1175
+ down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely
1176
+ remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and
1177
+ the other side will make you grow shorter.'
1178
+
1179
+ `One side of WHAT? The other side of WHAT?' thought Alice to
1180
+ herself.
1181
+
1182
+ `Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had
1183
+ asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
1184
+
1185
+ Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a
1186
+ minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as
1187
+ it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.
1188
+ However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they
1189
+ would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.
1190
+
1191
+ `And now which is which?' she said to herself, and nibbled a
1192
+ little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment
1193
+ she felt a violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her
1194
+ foot!
1195
+
1196
+ She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but
1197
+ she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking
1198
+ rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit.
1199
+ Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was
1200
+ hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and
1201
+ managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.
1202
+
1203
+
1204
+ * * * * * * *
1205
+
1206
+ * * * * * *
1207
+
1208
+ * * * * * * *
1209
+
1210
+ `Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of
1211
+ delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she
1212
+ found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could
1213
+ see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which
1214
+ seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay
1215
+ far below her.
1216
+
1217
+ `What CAN all that green stuff be?' said Alice. `And where
1218
+ HAVE my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I
1219
+ can't see you?' She was moving them about as she spoke, but no
1220
+ result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the
1221
+ distant green leaves.
1222
+
1223
+ As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her
1224
+ head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted
1225
+ to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction,
1226
+ like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a
1227
+ graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which
1228
+ she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she
1229
+ had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a
1230
+ hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating
1231
+ her violently with its wings.
1232
+
1233
+ `Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon.
1234
+
1235
+ `I'm NOT a serpent!' said Alice indignantly. `Let me alone!'
1236
+
1237
+ `Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more
1238
+ subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I've tried every
1239
+ way, and nothing seems to suit them!'
1240
+
1241
+ `I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said
1242
+ Alice.
1243
+
1244
+ `I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've
1245
+ tried hedges,' the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but
1246
+ those serpents! There's no pleasing them!'
1247
+
1248
+ Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no
1249
+ use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.
1250
+
1251
+ `As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the
1252
+ Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and
1253
+ day! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!'
1254
+
1255
+ `I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was
1256
+ beginning to see its meaning.
1257
+
1258
+ `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued
1259
+ the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was
1260
+ thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
1261
+ wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!'
1262
+
1263
+ `But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice. `I'm a--I'm
1264
+ a--'
1265
+
1266
+ `Well! WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon. `I can see you're
1267
+ trying to invent something!'
1268
+
1269
+ `I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she
1270
+ remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.
1271
+
1272
+ `A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the
1273
+ deepest contempt. `I've seen a good many little girls in my
1274
+ time, but never ONE with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a
1275
+ serpent; and there's no use denying it. I suppose you'll be
1276
+ telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'
1277
+
1278
+ `I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very
1279
+ truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as
1280
+ serpents do, you know.'
1281
+
1282
+ `I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why
1283
+ then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'
1284
+
1285
+ This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent
1286
+ for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of
1287
+ adding, `You're looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and
1288
+ what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a
1289
+ serpent?'
1290
+
1291
+ `It matters a good deal to ME,' said Alice hastily; `but I'm
1292
+ not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't
1293
+ want YOURS: I don't like them raw.'
1294
+
1295
+ `Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it
1296
+ settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the
1297
+ trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled
1298
+ among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and
1299
+ untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held the
1300
+ pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very
1301
+ carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and
1302
+ growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
1303
+ succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.
1304
+
1305
+ It was so long since she had been anything near the right size,
1306
+ that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a
1307
+ few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. `Come,
1308
+ there's half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes
1309
+ are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to
1310
+ another! However, I've got back to my right size: the next
1311
+ thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to be
1312
+ done, I wonder?' As she said this, she came suddenly upon an
1313
+ open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.
1314
+ `Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, `it'll never do to come
1315
+ upon them THIS size: why, I should frighten them out of their
1316
+ wits!' So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did
1317
+ not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself
1318
+ down to nine inches high.
1319
+
1320
+
1321
+
1322
+ CHAPTER VI
1323
+
1324
+ Pig and Pepper
1325
+
1326
+
1327
+ For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and
1328
+ wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came
1329
+ running out of the wood--(she considered him to be a footman
1330
+ because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only,
1331
+ she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door
1332
+ with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery,
1333
+ with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen,
1334
+ Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their
1335
+ heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and
1336
+ crept a little way out of the wood to listen.
1337
+
1338
+ The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great
1339
+ letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to
1340
+ the other, saying, in a solemn tone, `For the Duchess. An
1341
+ invitation from the Queen to play croquet.' The Frog-Footman
1342
+ repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the
1343
+ words a little, `From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess
1344
+ to play croquet.'
1345
+
1346
+ Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled
1347
+ together.
1348
+
1349
+ Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into
1350
+ the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped
1351
+ out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the
1352
+ ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.
1353
+
1354
+ Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.
1355
+
1356
+ `There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, `and
1357
+ that for two reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the
1358
+ door as you are; secondly, because they're making such a noise
1359
+ inside, no one could possibly hear you.' And certainly there was
1360
+ a most extraordinary noise going on within--a constant howling
1361
+ and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish
1362
+ or kettle had been broken to pieces.
1363
+
1364
+ `Please, then,' said Alice, `how am I to get in?'
1365
+
1366
+ `There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went
1367
+ on without attending to her, `if we had the door between us. For
1368
+ instance, if you were INSIDE, you might knock, and I could let
1369
+ you out, you know.' He was looking up into the sky all the time
1370
+ he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. `But
1371
+ perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; `his eyes are so
1372
+ VERY nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might
1373
+ answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.
1374
+
1375
+ `I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, `till tomorrow--'
1376
+
1377
+ At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate
1378
+ came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head: it just
1379
+ grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees
1380
+ behind him.
1381
+
1382
+ `--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone,
1383
+ exactly as if nothing had happened.
1384
+
1385
+ `How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.
1386
+
1387
+ `ARE you to get in at all?' said the Footman. `That's the
1388
+ first question, you know.'
1389
+
1390
+ It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so.
1391
+ `It's really dreadful,' she muttered to herself, `the way all the
1392
+ creatures argue. It's enough to drive one crazy!'
1393
+
1394
+ The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for
1395
+ repeating his remark, with variations. `I shall sit here,' he
1396
+ said, `on and off, for days and days.'
1397
+
1398
+ `But what am I to do?' said Alice.
1399
+
1400
+ `Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.
1401
+
1402
+ `Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately:
1403
+ `he's perfectly idiotic!' And she opened the door and went in.
1404
+
1405
+ The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of
1406
+ smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a
1407
+ three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was
1408
+ leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to
1409
+ be full of soup.
1410
+
1411
+ `There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to
1412
+ herself, as well as she could for sneezing.
1413
+
1414
+ There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the
1415
+ Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was
1416
+ sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause. The
1417
+ only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook,
1418
+ and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from
1419
+ ear to ear.
1420
+
1421
+ `Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for
1422
+ she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to
1423
+ speak first, `why your cat grins like that?'
1424
+
1425
+ `It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, `and that's why. Pig!'
1426
+
1427
+ She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice
1428
+ quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed
1429
+ to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on
1430
+ again:--
1431
+
1432
+ `I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I
1433
+ didn't know that cats COULD grin.'
1434
+
1435
+ `They all can,' said the Duchess; `and most of 'em do.'
1436
+
1437
+ `I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely,
1438
+ feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.
1439
+
1440
+ `You don't know much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.'
1441
+
1442
+ Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought
1443
+ it would be as well to introduce some other subject of
1444
+ conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took
1445
+ the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work
1446
+ throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby
1447
+ --the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans,
1448
+ plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when
1449
+ they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it
1450
+ was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.
1451
+
1452
+ `Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up
1453
+ and down in an agony of terror. `Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS
1454
+ nose'; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very
1455
+ nearly carried it off.
1456
+
1457
+ `If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a
1458
+ hoarse growl, `the world would go round a deal faster than it
1459
+ does.'
1460
+
1461
+ `Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very
1462
+ glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her
1463
+ knowledge. `Just think of what work it would make with the day
1464
+ and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn
1465
+ round on its axis--'
1466
+
1467
+ `Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, `chop off her head!'
1468
+
1469
+ Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant
1470
+ to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and
1471
+ seemed not to be listening, so she went on again: `Twenty-four
1472
+ hours, I THINK; or is it twelve? I--'
1473
+
1474
+ `Oh, don't bother ME,' said the Duchess; `I never could abide
1475
+ figures!' And with that she began nursing her child again,
1476
+ singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a
1477
+ violent shake at the end of every line:
1478
+
1479
+ `Speak roughly to your little boy,
1480
+ And beat him when he sneezes:
1481
+ He only does it to annoy,
1482
+ Because he knows it teases.'
1483
+
1484
+ CHORUS.
1485
+
1486
+ (In which the cook and the baby joined):--
1487
+
1488
+ `Wow! wow! wow!'
1489
+
1490
+ While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept
1491
+ tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing
1492
+ howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:--
1493
+
1494
+ `I speak severely to my boy,
1495
+ I beat him when he sneezes;
1496
+ For he can thoroughly enjoy
1497
+ The pepper when he pleases!'
1498
+
1499
+ CHORUS.
1500
+
1501
+ `Wow! wow! wow!'
1502
+
1503
+ `Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said
1504
+ to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. `I must go and
1505
+ get ready to play croquet with the Queen,' and she hurried out of
1506
+ the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out,
1507
+ but it just missed her.
1508
+
1509
+ Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-
1510
+ shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all
1511
+ directions, `just like a star-fish,' thought Alice. The poor
1512
+ little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it,
1513
+ and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again,
1514
+ so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much
1515
+ as she could do to hold it.
1516
+
1517
+ As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it,
1518
+ (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep
1519
+ tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its
1520
+ undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. `IF I
1521
+ don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, `they're sure
1522
+ to kill it in a day or two: wouldn't it be murder to leave it
1523
+ behind?' She said the last words out loud, and the little thing
1524
+ grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). `Don't
1525
+ grunt,' said Alice; `that's not at all a proper way of expressing
1526
+ yourself.'
1527
+
1528
+ The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into
1529
+ its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no
1530
+ doubt that it had a VERY turn-up nose, much more like a snout
1531
+ than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for
1532
+ a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at
1533
+ all. `But perhaps it was only sobbing,' she thought, and looked
1534
+ into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.
1535
+
1536
+ No, there were no tears. `If you're going to turn into a pig,
1537
+ my dear,' said Alice, seriously, `I'll have nothing more to do
1538
+ with you. Mind now!' The poor little thing sobbed again (or
1539
+ grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for
1540
+ some while in silence.
1541
+
1542
+ Alice was just beginning to think to herself, `Now, what am I
1543
+ to do with this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted
1544
+ again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some
1545
+ alarm. This time there could be NO mistake about it: it was
1546
+ neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be
1547
+ quite absurd for her to carry it further.
1548
+
1549
+ So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to
1550
+ see it trot away quietly into the wood. `If it had grown up,'
1551
+ she said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child:
1552
+ but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.' And she began
1553
+ thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as
1554
+ pigs, and was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right
1555
+ way to change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing
1556
+ the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
1557
+
1558
+ The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-
1559
+ natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great
1560
+ many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
1561
+
1562
+ `Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at
1563
+ all know whether it would like the name: however, it only
1564
+ grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought
1565
+ Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I
1566
+ ought to go from here?'
1567
+
1568
+ `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said
1569
+ the Cat.
1570
+
1571
+ `I don't much care where--' said Alice.
1572
+
1573
+ `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
1574
+
1575
+ `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
1576
+
1577
+ `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk
1578
+ long enough.'
1579
+
1580
+ Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
1581
+ question. `What sort of people live about here?'
1582
+
1583
+ `In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
1584
+ `lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw,
1585
+ `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'
1586
+
1587
+ `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
1588
+
1589
+ `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here.
1590
+ I'm mad. You're mad.'
1591
+
1592
+ `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
1593
+
1594
+ `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
1595
+
1596
+ Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on
1597
+ `And how do you know that you're mad?'
1598
+
1599
+ `To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant
1600
+ that?'
1601
+
1602
+ `I suppose so,' said Alice.
1603
+
1604
+ `Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's
1605
+ angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm
1606
+ pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'
1607
+
1608
+ `I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.
1609
+
1610
+ `Call it what you like,' said the Cat. `Do you play croquet
1611
+ with the Queen to-day?'
1612
+
1613
+ `I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been
1614
+ invited yet.'
1615
+
1616
+ `You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.
1617
+
1618
+ Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used
1619
+ to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place
1620
+ where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
1621
+
1622
+ `By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. `I'd
1623
+ nearly forgotten to ask.'
1624
+
1625
+ `It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had
1626
+ come back in a natural way.
1627
+
1628
+ `I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.
1629
+
1630
+ Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it
1631
+ did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
1632
+ direction in which the March Hare was said to live. `I've seen
1633
+ hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be
1634
+ much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
1635
+ raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.' As she said
1636
+ this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
1637
+ branch of a tree.
1638
+
1639
+ `Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.
1640
+
1641
+ `I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep
1642
+ appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'
1643
+
1644
+ `All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
1645
+ beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin,
1646
+ which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
1647
+
1648
+ `Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice;
1649
+ `but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever
1650
+ saw in my life!'
1651
+
1652
+ She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the
1653
+ house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house,
1654
+ because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
1655
+ thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not
1656
+ like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand
1657
+ bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even
1658
+ then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself
1659
+ `Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I'd
1660
+ gone to see the Hatter instead!'
1661
+
1662
+
1663
+
1664
+ CHAPTER VII
1665
+
1666
+ A Mad Tea-Party
1667
+
1668
+
1669
+ There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house,
1670
+ and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a
1671
+ Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two
1672
+ were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking
1673
+ over its head. `Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice;
1674
+ `only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'
1675
+
1676
+ The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded
1677
+ together at one corner of it: `No room! No room!' they cried
1678
+ out when they saw Alice coming. `There's PLENTY of room!' said
1679
+ Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one
1680
+ end of the table.
1681
+
1682
+ `Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
1683
+
1684
+ Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it
1685
+ but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
1686
+
1687
+ `There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
1688
+
1689
+ `Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice
1690
+ angrily.
1691
+
1692
+ `It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being
1693
+ invited,' said the March Hare.
1694
+
1695
+ `I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a
1696
+ great many more than three.'
1697
+
1698
+ `Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been
1699
+ looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was
1700
+ his first speech.
1701
+
1702
+ `You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said
1703
+ with some severity; `it's very rude.'
1704
+
1705
+ The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all
1706
+ he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
1707
+
1708
+ `Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad
1709
+ they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she
1710
+ added aloud.
1711
+
1712
+ `Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?'
1713
+ said the March Hare.
1714
+
1715
+ `Exactly so,' said Alice.
1716
+
1717
+ `Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
1718
+
1719
+ `I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what
1720
+ I say--that's the same thing, you know.'
1721
+
1722
+ `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just
1723
+ as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
1724
+ what I see"!'
1725
+
1726
+ `You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I
1727
+ like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
1728
+
1729
+ `You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to
1730
+ be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the
1731
+ same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
1732
+
1733
+ `It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
1734
+ conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute,
1735
+ while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and
1736
+ writing-desks, which wasn't much.
1737
+
1738
+ The Hatter was the first to break the silence. `What day of
1739
+ the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his
1740
+ watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking
1741
+ it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
1742
+
1743
+ Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'
1744
+
1745
+ `Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter. `I told you butter
1746
+ wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March
1747
+ Hare.
1748
+
1749
+ `It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.
1750
+
1751
+ `Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter
1752
+ grumbled: `you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'
1753
+
1754
+ The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then
1755
+ he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he
1756
+ could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It
1757
+ was the BEST butter, you know.'
1758
+
1759
+ Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity.
1760
+ `What a funny watch!' she remarked. `It tells the day of the
1761
+ month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'
1762
+
1763
+ `Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. `Does YOUR watch tell
1764
+ you what year it is?'
1765
+
1766
+ `Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: `but that's
1767
+ because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'
1768
+
1769
+ `Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.
1770
+
1771
+ Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to
1772
+ have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.
1773
+ `I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she
1774
+ could.
1775
+
1776
+ `The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured
1777
+ a little hot tea upon its nose.
1778
+
1779
+ The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without
1780
+ opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to
1781
+ remark myself.'
1782
+
1783
+ `Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to
1784
+ Alice again.
1785
+
1786
+ `No, I give it up,' Alice replied: `what's the answer?'
1787
+
1788
+ `I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.
1789
+
1790
+ `Nor I,' said the March Hare.
1791
+
1792
+ Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better
1793
+ with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that
1794
+ have no answers.'
1795
+
1796
+ `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you
1797
+ wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.'
1798
+
1799
+ `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
1800
+
1801
+ `Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head
1802
+ contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
1803
+
1804
+ `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to
1805
+ beat time when I learn music.'
1806
+
1807
+ `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand
1808
+ beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do
1809
+ almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose
1810
+ it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
1811
+ you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the
1812
+ clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!'
1813
+
1814
+ (`I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a
1815
+ whisper.)
1816
+
1817
+ `That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully:
1818
+ `but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'
1819
+
1820
+ `Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: `but you could keep
1821
+ it to half-past one as long as you liked.'
1822
+
1823
+ `Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.
1824
+
1825
+ The Hatter shook his head mournfully. `Not I!' he replied.
1826
+ `We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--'
1827
+ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it was at the
1828
+ great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing
1829
+
1830
+ "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
1831
+ How I wonder what you're at!"
1832
+
1833
+ You know the song, perhaps?'
1834
+
1835
+ `I've heard something like it,' said Alice.
1836
+
1837
+ `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:--
1838
+
1839
+ "Up above the world you fly,
1840
+ Like a tea-tray in the sky.
1841
+ Twinkle, twinkle--"'
1842
+
1843
+ Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep
1844
+ `Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that
1845
+ they had to pinch it to make it stop.
1846
+
1847
+ `Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter,
1848
+ `when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the
1849
+ time! Off with his head!"'
1850
+
1851
+ `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.
1852
+
1853
+ `And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone,
1854
+ `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'
1855
+
1856
+ A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so
1857
+ many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.
1858
+
1859
+ `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always
1860
+ tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'
1861
+
1862
+ `Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.
1863
+
1864
+ `Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.'
1865
+
1866
+ `But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice
1867
+ ventured to ask.
1868
+
1869
+ `Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted,
1870
+ yawning. `I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady
1871
+ tells us a story.'
1872
+
1873
+ `I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at
1874
+ the proposal.
1875
+
1876
+ `Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. `Wake up,
1877
+ Dormouse!' And they pinched it on both sides at once.
1878
+
1879
+ The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. `I wasn't asleep,' he
1880
+ said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every word you fellows
1881
+ were saying.'
1882
+
1883
+ `Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.
1884
+
1885
+ `Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.
1886
+
1887
+ `And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, `or you'll be asleep
1888
+ again before it's done.'
1889
+
1890
+ `Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the
1891
+ Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie,
1892
+ Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'
1893
+
1894
+ `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great
1895
+ interest in questions of eating and drinking.
1896
+
1897
+ `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a
1898
+ minute or two.
1899
+
1900
+ `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently
1901
+ remarked; `they'd have been ill.'
1902
+
1903
+ `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.'
1904
+
1905
+ Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways
1906
+ of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went
1907
+ on: `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'
1908
+
1909
+ `Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very
1910
+ earnestly.
1911
+
1912
+ `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so
1913
+ I can't take more.'
1914
+
1915
+ `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: `it's very
1916
+ easy to take MORE than nothing.'
1917
+
1918
+ `Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.
1919
+
1920
+ `Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked
1921
+ triumphantly.
1922
+
1923
+ Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped
1924
+ herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
1925
+ Dormouse, and repeated her question. `Why did they live at the
1926
+ bottom of a well?'
1927
+
1928
+ The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and
1929
+ then said, `It was a treacle-well.'
1930
+
1931
+ `There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very angrily, but
1932
+ the Hatter and the March Hare went `Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse
1933
+ sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the
1934
+ story for yourself.'
1935
+
1936
+ `No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; `I won't interrupt
1937
+ again. I dare say there may be ONE.'
1938
+
1939
+ `One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he
1940
+ consented to go on. `And so these three little sisters--they
1941
+ were learning to draw, you know--'
1942
+
1943
+ `What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
1944
+
1945
+ `Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this
1946
+ time.
1947
+
1948
+ `I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: `let's all move
1949
+ one place on.'
1950
+
1951
+ He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the
1952
+ March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
1953
+ unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the
1954
+ only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a
1955
+ good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset
1956
+ the milk-jug into his plate.
1957
+
1958
+ Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began
1959
+ very cautiously: `But I don't understand. Where did they draw
1960
+ the treacle from?'
1961
+
1962
+ `You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; `so
1963
+ I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh,
1964
+ stupid?'
1965
+
1966
+ `But they were IN the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not
1967
+ choosing to notice this last remark.
1968
+
1969
+ `Of course they were', said the Dormouse; `--well in.'
1970
+
1971
+ This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse
1972
+ go on for some time without interrupting it.
1973
+
1974
+ `They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and
1975
+ rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; `and they drew
1976
+ all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--'
1977
+
1978
+ `Why with an M?' said Alice.
1979
+
1980
+ `Why not?' said the March Hare.
1981
+
1982
+ Alice was silent.
1983
+
1984
+ The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going
1985
+ off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up
1986
+ again with a little shriek, and went on: `--that begins with an
1987
+ M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--
1988
+ you know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever
1989
+ see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?'
1990
+
1991
+ `Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I
1992
+ don't think--'
1993
+
1994
+ `Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
1995
+
1996
+ This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got
1997
+ up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep
1998
+ instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her
1999
+ going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that
2000
+ they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were
2001
+ trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
2002
+
2003
+ `At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she
2004
+ picked her way through the wood. `It's the stupidest tea-party I
2005
+ ever was at in all my life!'
2006
+
2007
+ Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a
2008
+ door leading right into it. `That's very curious!' she thought.
2009
+ `But everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.'
2010
+ And in she went.
2011
+
2012
+ Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the
2013
+ little glass table. `Now, I'll manage better this time,'
2014
+ she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key,
2015
+ and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went
2016
+ to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it
2017
+ in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down
2018
+ the little passage: and THEN--she found herself at last in the
2019
+ beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.
2020
+
2021
+
2022
+
2023
+ CHAPTER VIII
2024
+
2025
+ The Queen's Croquet-Ground
2026
+
2027
+
2028
+ A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the
2029
+ roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at
2030
+ it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious
2031
+ thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up
2032
+ to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five! Don't go
2033
+ splashing paint over me like that!'
2034
+
2035
+ `I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; `Seven jogged
2036
+ my elbow.'
2037
+
2038
+ On which Seven looked up and said, `That's right, Five! Always
2039
+ lay the blame on others!'
2040
+
2041
+ `YOU'D better not talk!' said Five. `I heard the Queen say only
2042
+ yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'
2043
+
2044
+ `What for?' said the one who had spoken first.
2045
+
2046
+ `That's none of YOUR business, Two!' said Seven.
2047
+
2048
+ `Yes, it IS his business!' said Five, `and I'll tell him--it
2049
+ was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'
2050
+
2051
+ Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all
2052
+ the unjust things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as
2053
+ she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the
2054
+ others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
2055
+
2056
+ `Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are
2057
+ painting those roses?'
2058
+
2059
+ Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a
2060
+ low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to
2061
+ have been a RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake;
2062
+ and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads
2063
+ cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore
2064
+ she comes, to--' At this moment Five, who had been anxiously
2065
+ looking across the garden, called out `The Queen! The Queen!'
2066
+ and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon
2067
+ their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice
2068
+ looked round, eager to see the Queen.
2069
+
2070
+ First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped
2071
+ like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and
2072
+ feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were
2073
+ ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the
2074
+ soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were
2075
+ ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand
2076
+ in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next
2077
+ came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice
2078
+ recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried nervous
2079
+ manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
2080
+ noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the
2081
+ King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this
2082
+ grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.
2083
+
2084
+ Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on
2085
+ her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember
2086
+ ever having heard of such a rule at processions; `and besides,
2087
+ what would be the use of a procession,' thought she, `if people
2088
+ had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see it?'
2089
+ So she stood still where she was, and waited.
2090
+
2091
+ When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped
2092
+ and looked at her, and the Queen said severely `Who is this?'
2093
+ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.
2094
+
2095
+ `Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and,
2096
+ turning to Alice, she went on, `What's your name, child?'
2097
+
2098
+ `My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very
2099
+ politely; but she added, to herself, `Why, they're only a pack of
2100
+ cards, after all. I needn't be afraid of them!'
2101
+
2102
+ `And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three
2103
+ gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as
2104
+ they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs
2105
+ was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether
2106
+ they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her
2107
+ own children.
2108
+
2109
+ `How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage.
2110
+ `It's no business of MINE.'
2111
+
2112
+ The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her
2113
+ for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head!
2114
+ Off--'
2115
+
2116
+ `Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the
2117
+ Queen was silent.
2118
+
2119
+ The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said
2120
+ `Consider, my dear: she is only a child!'
2121
+
2122
+ The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave
2123
+ `Turn them over!'
2124
+
2125
+ The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.
2126
+
2127
+ `Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the
2128
+ three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the
2129
+ King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.
2130
+
2131
+ `Leave off that!' screamed the Queen. `You make me giddy.'
2132
+ And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, `What HAVE you
2133
+ been doing here?'
2134
+
2135
+ `May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone,
2136
+ going down on one knee as he spoke, `we were trying--'
2137
+
2138
+ `I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
2139
+ roses. `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on,
2140
+ three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate
2141
+ gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.
2142
+
2143
+ `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a
2144
+ large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered
2145
+ about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly
2146
+ marched off after the others.
2147
+
2148
+ `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.
2149
+
2150
+ `Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers
2151
+ shouted in reply.
2152
+
2153
+ `That's right!' shouted the Queen. `Can you play croquet?'
2154
+
2155
+ The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question
2156
+ was evidently meant for her.
2157
+
2158
+ `Yes!' shouted Alice.
2159
+
2160
+ `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the
2161
+ procession, wondering very much what would happen next.
2162
+
2163
+ `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side.
2164
+ She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously
2165
+ into her face.
2166
+
2167
+ `Very,' said Alice: `--where's the Duchess?'
2168
+
2169
+ `Hush! Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He
2170
+ looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised
2171
+ himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and
2172
+ whispered `She's under sentence of execution.'
2173
+
2174
+ `What for?' said Alice.
2175
+
2176
+ `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.
2177
+
2178
+ `No, I didn't,' said Alice: `I don't think it's at all a pity.
2179
+ I said "What for?"'
2180
+
2181
+ `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began. Alice gave a
2182
+ little scream of laughter. `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a
2183
+ frightened tone. `The Queen will hear you! You see, she came
2184
+ rather late, and the Queen said--'
2185
+
2186
+ `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,
2187
+ and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up
2188
+ against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or
2189
+ two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a
2190
+ curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and
2191
+ furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live
2192
+ flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to
2193
+ stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
2194
+
2195
+ The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
2196
+ flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,
2197
+ comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down,
2198
+ but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened
2199
+ out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it
2200
+ WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a
2201
+ puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:
2202
+ and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,
2203
+ it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
2204
+ itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this,
2205
+ there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she
2206
+ wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers
2207
+ were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the
2208
+ ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very
2209
+ difficult game indeed.
2210
+
2211
+ The players all played at once without waiting for turns,
2212
+ quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in
2213
+ a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went
2214
+ stamping about, and shouting `Off with his head!' or `Off with
2215
+ her head!' about once in a minute.
2216
+
2217
+ Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as
2218
+ yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might
2219
+ happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would become of
2220
+ me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great
2221
+ wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'
2222
+
2223
+ She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering
2224
+ whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a
2225
+ curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at
2226
+ first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to
2227
+ be a grin, and she said to herself `It's the Cheshire Cat: now I
2228
+ shall have somebody to talk to.'
2229
+
2230
+ `How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was
2231
+ mouth enough for it to speak with.
2232
+
2233
+ Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. `It's no
2234
+ use speaking to it,' she thought, `till its ears have come, or at
2235
+ least one of them.' In another minute the whole head appeared,
2236
+ and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the
2237
+ game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The
2238
+ Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and
2239
+ no more of it appeared.
2240
+
2241
+ `I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather
2242
+ a complaining tone, `and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't
2243
+ hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in
2244
+ particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and
2245
+ you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive;
2246
+ for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next
2247
+ walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have
2248
+ croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it
2249
+ saw mine coming!'
2250
+
2251
+ `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.
2252
+
2253
+ `Not at all,' said Alice: `she's so extremely--' Just then
2254
+ she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so
2255
+ she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while
2256
+ finishing the game.'
2257
+
2258
+ The Queen smiled and passed on.
2259
+
2260
+ `Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and
2261
+ looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.
2262
+
2263
+ `It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice: `allow me
2264
+ to introduce it.'
2265
+
2266
+ `I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King:
2267
+ `however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
2268
+
2269
+ `I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
2270
+
2271
+ `Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at me
2272
+ like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
2273
+
2274
+ `A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. `I've read that in
2275
+ some book, but I don't remember where.'
2276
+
2277
+ `Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and
2278
+ he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear! I
2279
+ wish you would have this cat removed!'
2280
+
2281
+ The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great
2282
+ or small. `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking
2283
+ round.
2284
+
2285
+ `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and
2286
+ he hurried off.
2287
+
2288
+ Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game
2289
+ was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance,
2290
+ screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three
2291
+ of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and
2292
+ she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in
2293
+ such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or
2294
+ not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.
2295
+
2296
+ The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog,
2297
+ which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one
2298
+ of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her
2299
+ flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where
2300
+ Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up
2301
+ into a tree.
2302
+
2303
+ By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back,
2304
+ the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight:
2305
+ `but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches
2306
+ are gone from this side of the ground.' So she tucked it away
2307
+ under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for
2308
+ a little more conversation with her friend.
2309
+
2310
+ When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to
2311
+ find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute
2312
+ going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who
2313
+ were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent,
2314
+ and looked very uncomfortable.
2315
+
2316
+ The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to
2317
+ settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her,
2318
+ though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed
2319
+ to make out exactly what they said.
2320
+
2321
+ The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a
2322
+ head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had
2323
+ never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin
2324
+ at HIS time of life.
2325
+
2326
+ The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
2327
+ beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.
2328
+
2329
+ The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about
2330
+ it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round.
2331
+ (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so
2332
+ grave and anxious.)
2333
+
2334
+ Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the
2335
+ Duchess: you'd better ask HER about it.'
2336
+
2337
+ `She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: `fetch
2338
+ her here.' And the executioner went off like an arrow.
2339
+
2340
+ The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
2341
+ by the time he had come back with the Dutchess, it had entirely
2342
+ disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
2343
+ looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.
2344
+
2345
+
2346
+
2347
+ CHAPTER IX
2348
+
2349
+ The Mock Turtle's Story
2350
+
2351
+
2352
+ `You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old
2353
+ thing!' said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately
2354
+ into Alice's, and they walked off together.
2355
+
2356
+ Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and
2357
+ thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had
2358
+ made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.
2359
+
2360
+ `When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very
2361
+ hopeful tone though), `I won't have any pepper in my kitchen AT
2362
+ ALL. Soup does very well without--Maybe it's always pepper that
2363
+ makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at
2364
+ having found out a new kind of rule, `and vinegar that makes them
2365
+ sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar
2366
+ and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish
2367
+ people knew that: then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you
2368
+ know--'
2369
+
2370
+ She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a
2371
+ little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear.
2372
+ `You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
2373
+ forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that
2374
+ is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'
2375
+
2376
+ `Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.
2377
+
2378
+ `Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. `Everything's got a
2379
+ moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up
2380
+ closer to Alice's side as she spoke.
2381
+
2382
+ Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first,
2383
+ because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was
2384
+ exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder,
2385
+ and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not
2386
+ like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.
2387
+
2388
+ `The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of
2389
+ keeping up the conversation a little.
2390
+
2391
+ `'Tis so,' said the Duchess: `and the moral of that is--"Oh,
2392
+ 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'
2393
+
2394
+ `Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody
2395
+ minding their own business!'
2396
+
2397
+ `Ah, well! It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess,
2398
+ digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added,
2399
+ `and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the
2400
+ sounds will take care of themselves."'
2401
+
2402
+ `How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to
2403
+ herself.
2404
+
2405
+ `I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your
2406
+ waist,' the Duchess said after a pause: `the reason is, that I'm
2407
+ doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the
2408
+ experiment?'
2409
+
2410
+ `HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all
2411
+ anxious to have the experiment tried.
2412
+
2413
+ `Very true,' said the Duchess: `flamingoes and mustard both
2414
+ bite. And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock
2415
+ together."'
2416
+
2417
+ `Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.
2418
+
2419
+ `Right, as usual,' said the Duchess: `what a clear way you
2420
+ have of putting things!'
2421
+
2422
+ `It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice.
2423
+
2424
+ `Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree
2425
+ to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near
2426
+ here. And the moral of that is--"The more there is of mine, the
2427
+ less there is of yours."'
2428
+
2429
+ `Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this
2430
+ last remark, `it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it
2431
+ is.'
2432
+
2433
+ `I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of
2434
+ that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put
2435
+ more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than
2436
+ what it might appear to others that what you were or might have
2437
+ been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared
2438
+ to them to be otherwise."'
2439
+
2440
+ `I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very
2441
+ politely, `if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it
2442
+ as you say it.'
2443
+
2444
+ `That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess
2445
+ replied, in a pleased tone.
2446
+
2447
+ `Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,'
2448
+ said Alice.
2449
+
2450
+ `Oh, don't talk about trouble!' said the Duchess. `I make you
2451
+ a present of everything I've said as yet.'
2452
+
2453
+ `A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they don't
2454
+ give birthday presents like that!' But she did not venture to
2455
+ say it out loud.
2456
+
2457
+ `Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her
2458
+ sharp little chin.
2459
+
2460
+ `I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was
2461
+ beginning to feel a little worried.
2462
+
2463
+ `Just about as much right,' said the Duchess, `as pigs have to fly;
2464
+ and the m--'
2465
+
2466
+ But here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died
2467
+ away, even in the middle of her favourite word `moral,' and the
2468
+ arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up,
2469
+ and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded,
2470
+ frowning like a thunderstorm.
2471
+
2472
+ `A fine day, your Majesty!' the Duchess began in a low, weak
2473
+ voice.
2474
+
2475
+ `Now, I give you fair warning,' shouted the Queen, stamping on
2476
+ the ground as she spoke; `either you or your head must be off,
2477
+ and that in about half no time! Take your choice!'
2478
+
2479
+ The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.
2480
+
2481
+ `Let's go on with the game,' the Queen said to Alice; and Alice
2482
+ was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her
2483
+ back to the croquet-ground.
2484
+
2485
+ The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence,
2486
+ and were resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her,
2487
+ they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a
2488
+ moment's delay would cost them their lives.
2489
+
2490
+ All the time they were playing the Queen never left off
2491
+ quarrelling with the other players, and shouting `Off with his
2492
+ head!' or `Off with her head!' Those whom she sentenced were
2493
+ taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave
2494
+ off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour
2495
+ or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the
2496
+ King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of
2497
+ execution.
2498
+
2499
+ Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to
2500
+ Alice, `Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?'
2501
+
2502
+ `No,' said Alice. `I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is.'
2503
+
2504
+ `It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,' said the Queen.
2505
+
2506
+ `I never saw one, or heard of one,' said Alice.
2507
+
2508
+ `Come on, then,' said the Queen, `and he shall tell you his
2509
+ history,'
2510
+
2511
+ As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low
2512
+ voice, to the company generally, `You are all pardoned.' `Come,
2513
+ THAT'S a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite
2514
+ unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.
2515
+
2516
+ They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the
2517
+ sun. (IF you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.)
2518
+ `Up, lazy thing!' said the Queen, `and take this young lady to
2519
+ see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and
2520
+ see after some executions I have ordered'; and she walked off,
2521
+ leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like
2522
+ the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would
2523
+ be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage
2524
+ Queen: so she waited.
2525
+
2526
+ The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the
2527
+ Queen till she was out of sight: then it chuckled. `What fun!'
2528
+ said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.
2529
+
2530
+ `What IS the fun?' said Alice.
2531
+
2532
+ `Why, SHE,' said the Gryphon. `It's all her fancy, that: they
2533
+ never executes nobody, you know. Come on!'
2534
+
2535
+ `Everybody says "come on!" here,' thought Alice, as she went
2536
+ slowly after it: `I never was so ordered about in all my life,
2537
+ never!'
2538
+
2539
+ They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the
2540
+ distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and,
2541
+ as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart
2542
+ would break. She pitied him deeply. `What is his sorrow?' she
2543
+ asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the
2544
+ same words as before, `It's all his fancy, that: he hasn't got
2545
+ no sorrow, you know. Come on!'
2546
+
2547
+ So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with
2548
+ large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.
2549
+
2550
+ `This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, `she wants for to
2551
+ know your history, she do.'
2552
+
2553
+ `I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow
2554
+ tone: `sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've
2555
+ finished.'
2556
+
2557
+ So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice
2558
+ thought to herself, `I don't see how he can EVEN finish, if he
2559
+ doesn't begin.' But she waited patiently.
2560
+
2561
+ `Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, `I was
2562
+ a real Turtle.'
2563
+
2564
+ These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only
2565
+ by an occasional exclamation of `Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and
2566
+ the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very
2567
+ nearly getting up and saying, `Thank you, sir, for your
2568
+ interesting story,' but she could not help thinking there MUST be
2569
+ more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.
2570
+
2571
+ `When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more
2572
+ calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, `we went to
2573
+ school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle--we used to call
2574
+ him Tortoise--'
2575
+
2576
+ `Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.
2577
+
2578
+ `We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock
2579
+ Turtle angrily: `really you are very dull!'
2580
+
2581
+ `You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
2582
+ question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and
2583
+ looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At
2584
+ last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, `Drive on, old fellow!
2585
+ Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:
2586
+
2587
+ `Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe
2588
+ it--'
2589
+
2590
+ `I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.
2591
+
2592
+ `You did,' said the Mock Turtle.
2593
+
2594
+ `Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak
2595
+ again. The Mock Turtle went on.
2596
+
2597
+ `We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school
2598
+ every day--'
2599
+
2600
+ `I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; `you needn't be
2601
+ so proud as all that.'
2602
+
2603
+ `With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
2604
+
2605
+ `Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'
2606
+
2607
+ `And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
2608
+
2609
+ `Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.
2610
+
2611
+ `Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock
2612
+ Turtle in a tone of great relief. `Now at OURS they had at the
2613
+ end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'
2614
+
2615
+ `You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the
2616
+ bottom of the sea.'
2617
+
2618
+ `I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a
2619
+ sigh. `I only took the regular course.'
2620
+
2621
+ `What was that?' inquired Alice.
2622
+
2623
+ `Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
2624
+ Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic--
2625
+ Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'
2626
+
2627
+ `I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. `What is it?'
2628
+
2629
+ The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never
2630
+ heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is,
2631
+ I suppose?'
2632
+
2633
+ `Yes,' said Alice doubtfully: `it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'
2634
+
2635
+ `Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to
2636
+ uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'
2637
+
2638
+ Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about
2639
+ it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you
2640
+ to learn?'
2641
+
2642
+ `Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting
2643
+ off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern,
2644
+ with Seaography: then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old
2645
+ conger-eel, that used to come once a week: HE taught us
2646
+ Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'
2647
+
2648
+ `What was THAT like?' said Alice.
2649
+
2650
+ `Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said: `I'm
2651
+ too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.'
2652
+
2653
+ `Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon: `I went to the Classics
2654
+ master, though. He was an old crab, HE was.'
2655
+
2656
+ `I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: `he
2657
+ taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'
2658
+
2659
+ `So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn;
2660
+ and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.
2661
+
2662
+ `And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a
2663
+ hurry to change the subject.
2664
+
2665
+ `Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the
2666
+ next, and so on.'
2667
+
2668
+ `What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
2669
+
2670
+ `That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon
2671
+ remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.'
2672
+
2673
+ This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a
2674
+ little before she made her next remark. `Then the eleventh day
2675
+ must have been a holiday?'
2676
+
2677
+ `Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.
2678
+
2679
+ `And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.
2680
+
2681
+ `That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a
2682
+ very decided tone: `tell her something about the games now.'
2683
+
2684
+
2685
+
2686
+ CHAPTER X
2687
+
2688
+ The Lobster Quadrille
2689
+
2690
+
2691
+ The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper
2692
+ across his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for
2693
+ a minute or two sobs choked his voice. `Same as if he had a bone
2694
+ in his throat,' said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him
2695
+ and punching him in the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered
2696
+ his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on
2697
+ again:--
2698
+
2699
+ `You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)--
2700
+ `and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster--'
2701
+ (Alice began to say `I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily,
2702
+ and said `No, never') `--so you can have no idea what a delightful
2703
+ thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'
2704
+
2705
+ `No, indeed,' said Alice. `What sort of a dance is it?'
2706
+
2707
+ `Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'
2708
+
2709
+ `Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle. `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on;
2710
+ then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way--'
2711
+
2712
+ `THAT generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.
2713
+
2714
+ `--you advance twice--'
2715
+
2716
+ `Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.
2717
+
2718
+ `Of course,' the Mock Turtle said: `advance twice, set to
2719
+ partners--'
2720
+
2721
+ `--change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the
2722
+ Gryphon.
2723
+
2724
+ `Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the--'
2725
+
2726
+ `The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.
2727
+
2728
+ `--as far out to sea as you can--'
2729
+
2730
+ `Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.
2731
+
2732
+ `Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle,
2733
+ capering wildly about.
2734
+
2735
+ `Change lobster's again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
2736
+
2737
+ `Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the
2738
+ Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures,
2739
+ who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat
2740
+ down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.
2741
+
2742
+ `It must be a very pretty dance,' said Alice timidly.
2743
+
2744
+ `Would you like to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle.
2745
+
2746
+ `Very much indeed,' said Alice.
2747
+
2748
+ `Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the
2749
+ Gryphon. `We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall
2750
+ sing?'
2751
+
2752
+ `Oh, YOU sing,' said the Gryphon. `I've forgotten the words.'
2753
+
2754
+ So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now
2755
+ and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and
2756
+ waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle
2757
+ sang this, very slowly and sadly:--
2758
+
2759
+
2760
+ `"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
2761
+ "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my
2762
+ tail.
2763
+ See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
2764
+ They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the
2765
+ dance?
2766
+
2767
+ Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
2768
+ dance?
2769
+ Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
2770
+ dance?
2771
+
2772
+
2773
+ "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
2774
+ When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to
2775
+ sea!"
2776
+ But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look
2777
+ askance--
2778
+ Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the
2779
+ dance.
2780
+ Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join
2781
+ the dance.
2782
+ Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join
2783
+ the dance.
2784
+
2785
+ `"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
2786
+ "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
2787
+ The further off from England the nearer is to France--
2788
+ Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
2789
+
2790
+ Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
2791
+ dance?
2792
+ Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
2793
+ dance?"'
2794
+
2795
+
2796
+
2797
+ `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said
2798
+ Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: `and I do so
2799
+ like that curious song about the whiting!'
2800
+
2801
+ `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've
2802
+ seen them, of course?'
2803
+
2804
+ `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she
2805
+ checked herself hastily.
2806
+
2807
+ `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but
2808
+ if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're
2809
+ like.'
2810
+
2811
+ `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. `They have their
2812
+ tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.'
2813
+
2814
+ `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle:
2815
+ `crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they HAVE their tails
2816
+ in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle
2817
+ yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all
2818
+ that,' he said to the Gryphon.
2819
+
2820
+ `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with
2821
+ the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So
2822
+ they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in
2823
+ their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all.'
2824
+
2825
+ `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting. I never knew
2826
+ so much about a whiting before.'
2827
+
2828
+ `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the
2829
+ Gryphon. `Do you know why it's called a whiting?'
2830
+
2831
+ `I never thought about it,' said Alice. `Why?'
2832
+
2833
+ `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very
2834
+ solemnly.
2835
+
2836
+ Alice was thoroughly puzzled. `Does the boots and shoes!' she
2837
+ repeated in a wondering tone.
2838
+
2839
+ `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon. `I
2840
+ mean, what makes them so shiny?'
2841
+
2842
+ Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she
2843
+ gave her answer. `They're done with blacking, I believe.'
2844
+
2845
+ `Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep
2846
+ voice, `are done with a whiting. Now you know.'
2847
+
2848
+ `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great
2849
+ curiosity.
2850
+
2851
+ `Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather
2852
+ impatiently: `any shrimp could have told you that.'
2853
+
2854
+ `If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were
2855
+ still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep
2856
+ back, please: we don't want YOU with us!"'
2857
+
2858
+ `They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle
2859
+ said: `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.'
2860
+
2861
+ `Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise.
2862
+
2863
+ `Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle: `why, if a fish came
2864
+ to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With
2865
+ what porpoise?"'
2866
+
2867
+ `Don't you mean "purpose"?' said Alice.
2868
+
2869
+ `I mean what I say,' the Mock Turtle replied in an offended
2870
+ tone. And the Gryphon added `Come, let's hear some of YOUR
2871
+ adventures.'
2872
+
2873
+ `I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,'
2874
+ said Alice a little timidly: `but it's no use going back to
2875
+ yesterday, because I was a different person then.'
2876
+
2877
+ `Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle.
2878
+
2879
+ `No, no! The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an
2880
+ impatient tone: `explanations take such a dreadful time.'
2881
+
2882
+ So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when
2883
+ she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about
2884
+ it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on
2885
+ each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so VERY wide, but she
2886
+ gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly
2887
+ quiet till she got to the part about her repeating `YOU ARE OLD,
2888
+
2889
+ FATHER WILLIAM,' to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming
2890
+ different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said
2891
+ `That's very curious.'
2892
+
2893
+ `It's all about as curious as it can be,' said the Gryphon.
2894
+
2895
+ `It all came different!' the Mock Turtle repeated
2896
+ thoughtfully. `I should like to hear her try and repeat
2897
+ something now. Tell her to begin.' He looked at the Gryphon as
2898
+ if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.
2899
+
2900
+ `Stand up and repeat "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,"' said
2901
+ the Gryphon.
2902
+
2903
+ `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat
2904
+ lessons!' thought Alice; `I might as well be at school at once.'
2905
+ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so
2906
+ full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was
2907
+ saying, and the words came very queer indeed:--
2908
+
2909
+ `'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
2910
+ "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
2911
+ As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
2912
+ Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'
2913
+
2914
+ [later editions continued as follows
2915
+ When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
2916
+ And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
2917
+ But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
2918
+ His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]
2919
+
2920
+ `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,'
2921
+ said the Gryphon.
2922
+
2923
+ `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it
2924
+ sounds uncommon nonsense.'
2925
+
2926
+ Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her
2927
+ hands, wondering if anything would EVER happen in a natural way
2928
+ again.
2929
+
2930
+ `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle.
2931
+
2932
+ `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily. `Go on with
2933
+ the next verse.'
2934
+
2935
+ `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted. `How COULD
2936
+ he turn them out with his nose, you know?'
2937
+
2938
+ `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was
2939
+ dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the
2940
+ subject.
2941
+
2942
+ `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated impatiently:
2943
+ `it begins "I passed by his garden."'
2944
+
2945
+ Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would
2946
+ all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:--
2947
+
2948
+ `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
2949
+ How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--'
2950
+
2951
+ [later editions continued as follows
2952
+ The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
2953
+ While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.
2954
+ When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
2955
+ Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
2956
+ While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
2957
+ And concluded the banquet--]
2958
+
2959
+ `What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,' the Mock Turtle
2960
+ interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far
2961
+ the most confusing thing I ever heard!'
2962
+
2963
+ `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon: and
2964
+ Alice was only too glad to do so.
2965
+
2966
+ `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the
2967
+ Gryphon went on. `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you
2968
+ a song?'
2969
+
2970
+ `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,'
2971
+ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather
2972
+ offended tone, `Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her
2973
+ "Turtle Soup," will you, old fellow?'
2974
+
2975
+ The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes
2976
+ choked with sobs, to sing this:--
2977
+
2978
+
2979
+ `Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
2980
+ Waiting in a hot tureen!
2981
+ Who for such dainties would not stoop?
2982
+ Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
2983
+ Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
2984
+ Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
2985
+ Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
2986
+ Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
2987
+ Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
2988
+
2989
+ `Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
2990
+ Game, or any other dish?
2991
+ Who would not give all else for two p
2992
+ ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
2993
+ Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
2994
+ Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
2995
+ Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
2996
+ Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
2997
+ Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!'
2998
+
2999
+ `Chorus again!' cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had
3000
+ just begun to repeat it, when a cry of `The trial's beginning!'
3001
+ was heard in the distance.
3002
+
3003
+ `Come on!' cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand,
3004
+ it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.
3005
+
3006
+ `What trial is it?' Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon
3007
+ only answered `Come on!' and ran the faster, while more and more
3008
+ faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the
3009
+ melancholy words:--
3010
+
3011
+ `Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
3012
+ Beautiful, beautiful Soup!'
3013
+
3014
+
3015
+
3016
+ CHAPTER XI
3017
+
3018
+ Who Stole the Tarts?
3019
+
3020
+
3021
+ The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when
3022
+ they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them--all sorts
3023
+ of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards:
3024
+ the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on
3025
+ each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit,
3026
+ with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the
3027
+ other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large
3028
+ dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice
3029
+ quite hungry to look at them--`I wish they'd get the trial done,'
3030
+ she thought, `and hand round the refreshments!' But there seemed
3031
+ to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about
3032
+ her, to pass away the time.
3033
+
3034
+ Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had
3035
+ read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that
3036
+ she knew the name of nearly everything there. `That's the
3037
+ judge,' she said to herself, `because of his great wig.'
3038
+
3039
+ The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown
3040
+ over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he
3041
+ did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly
3042
+ not becoming.
3043
+
3044
+ `And that's the jury-box,' thought Alice, `and those twelve
3045
+ creatures,' (she was obliged to say `creatures,' you see, because
3046
+ some of them were animals, and some were birds,) `I suppose they
3047
+ are the jurors.' She said this last word two or three times over
3048
+ to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and
3049
+ rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the
3050
+ meaning of it at all. However, `jury-men' would have done just
3051
+ as well.
3052
+
3053
+ The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates.
3054
+ `What are they doing?' Alice whispered to the Gryphon. `They
3055
+ can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'
3056
+
3057
+ `They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in
3058
+ reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the
3059
+ trial.'
3060
+
3061
+ `Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but
3062
+ she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in
3063
+ the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked
3064
+ anxiously round, to make out who was talking.
3065
+
3066
+ Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their
3067
+ shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!'
3068
+ on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them
3069
+ didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his
3070
+ neighbour to tell him. `A nice muddle their slates'll be in
3071
+ before the trial's over!' thought Alice.
3072
+
3073
+ One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course,
3074
+ Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got
3075
+ behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it
3076
+ away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was
3077
+ Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of
3078
+ it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write
3079
+ with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very
3080
+ little use, as it left no mark on the slate.
3081
+
3082
+ `Herald, read the accusation!' said the King.
3083
+
3084
+ On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and
3085
+ then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:--
3086
+
3087
+ `The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
3088
+ All on a summer day:
3089
+ The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
3090
+ And took them quite away!'
3091
+
3092
+ `Consider your verdict,' the King said to the jury.
3093
+
3094
+ `Not yet, not yet!' the Rabbit hastily interrupted. `There's
3095
+ a great deal to come before that!'
3096
+
3097
+ `Call the first witness,' said the King; and the White Rabbit
3098
+ blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, `First
3099
+ witness!'
3100
+
3101
+ The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in
3102
+ one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. `I beg
3103
+ pardon, your Majesty,' he began, `for bringing these in: but I
3104
+ hadn't quite finished my tea when I was sent for.'
3105
+
3106
+ `You ought to have finished,' said the King. `When did you
3107
+ begin?'
3108
+
3109
+ The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into
3110
+ the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. `Fourteenth of March, I
3111
+ think it was,' he said.
3112
+
3113
+ `Fifteenth,' said the March Hare.
3114
+
3115
+ `Sixteenth,' added the Dormouse.
3116
+
3117
+ `Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury
3118
+ eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then
3119
+ added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
3120
+
3121
+ `Take off your hat,' the King said to the Hatter.
3122
+
3123
+ `It isn't mine,' said the Hatter.
3124
+
3125
+ `Stolen!' the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who
3126
+ instantly made a memorandum of the fact.
3127
+
3128
+ `I keep them to sell,' the Hatter added as an explanation;
3129
+ `I've none of my own. I'm a hatter.'
3130
+
3131
+ Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the
3132
+ Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.
3133
+
3134
+ `Give your evidence,' said the King; `and don't be nervous, or
3135
+ I'll have you executed on the spot.'
3136
+
3137
+ This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept
3138
+ shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the
3139
+ Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his
3140
+ teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.
3141
+
3142
+ Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which
3143
+ puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was
3144
+ beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she
3145
+ would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she
3146
+ decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for
3147
+ her.
3148
+
3149
+ `I wish you wouldn't squeeze so.' said the Dormouse, who was
3150
+ sitting next to her. `I can hardly breathe.'
3151
+
3152
+ `I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly: `I'm growing.'
3153
+
3154
+ `You've no right to grow here,' said the Dormouse.
3155
+
3156
+ `Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more boldly: `you know
3157
+ you're growing too.'
3158
+
3159
+ `Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,' said the Dormouse:
3160
+ `not in that ridiculous fashion.' And he got up very sulkily
3161
+ and crossed over to the other side of the court.
3162
+
3163
+ All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the
3164
+ Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to
3165
+ one of the officers of the court, `Bring me the list of the
3166
+ singers in the last concert!' on which the wretched Hatter
3167
+ trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
3168
+
3169
+ `Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have
3170
+ you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'
3171
+
3172
+ `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a
3173
+ trembling voice, `--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week
3174
+ or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and
3175
+ the twinkling of the tea--'
3176
+
3177
+ `The twinkling of the what?' said the King.
3178
+
3179
+ `It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied.
3180
+
3181
+ `Of course twinkling begins with a T!' said the King sharply.
3182
+ `Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!'
3183
+
3184
+ `I'm a poor man,' the Hatter went on, `and most things
3185
+ twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--'
3186
+
3187
+ `I didn't!' the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.
3188
+
3189
+ `You did!' said the Hatter.
3190
+
3191
+ `I deny it!' said the March Hare.
3192
+
3193
+ `He denies it,' said the King: `leave out that part.'
3194
+
3195
+ `Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--' the Hatter went on,
3196
+ looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the
3197
+ Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
3198
+
3199
+ `After that,' continued the Hatter, `I cut some more bread-
3200
+ and-butter--'
3201
+
3202
+ `But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked.
3203
+
3204
+ `That I can't remember,' said the Hatter.
3205
+
3206
+ `You MUST remember,' remarked the King, `or I'll have you
3207
+ executed.'
3208
+
3209
+ The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter,
3210
+ and went down on one knee. `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' he
3211
+ began.
3212
+
3213
+ `You're a very poor speaker,' said the King.
3214
+
3215
+ Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately
3216
+ suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a
3217
+ hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had
3218
+ a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings:
3219
+ into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat
3220
+ upon it.)
3221
+
3222
+ `I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice. `I've so often
3223
+ read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some
3224
+ attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the
3225
+ officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant
3226
+ till now.'
3227
+
3228
+ `If that's all you know about it, you may stand down,'
3229
+ continued the King.
3230
+
3231
+ `I can't go no lower,' said the Hatter: `I'm on the floor, as
3232
+ it is.'
3233
+
3234
+ `Then you may SIT down,' the King replied.
3235
+
3236
+ Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.
3237
+
3238
+ `Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!' thought Alice. `Now we
3239
+ shall get on better.'
3240
+
3241
+ `I'd rather finish my tea,' said the Hatter, with an anxious
3242
+ look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.
3243
+
3244
+ `You may go,' said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the
3245
+ court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.
3246
+
3247
+ `--and just take his head off outside,' the Queen added to one
3248
+ of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the
3249
+ officer could get to the door.
3250
+
3251
+ `Call the next witness!' said the King.
3252
+
3253
+ The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the
3254
+ pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before
3255
+ she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began
3256
+ sneezing all at once.
3257
+
3258
+ `Give your evidence,' said the King.
3259
+
3260
+ `Shan't,' said the cook.
3261
+
3262
+ The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a
3263
+ low voice, `Your Majesty must cross-examine THIS witness.'
3264
+
3265
+ `Well, if I must, I must,' the King said, with a melancholy
3266
+ air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till
3267
+ his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, `What
3268
+ are tarts made of?'
3269
+
3270
+ `Pepper, mostly,' said the cook.
3271
+
3272
+ `Treacle,' said a sleepy voice behind her.
3273
+
3274
+ `Collar that Dormouse,' the Queen shrieked out. `Behead that
3275
+ Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch
3276
+ him! Off with his whiskers!'
3277
+
3278
+ For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the
3279
+ Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down
3280
+ again, the cook had disappeared.
3281
+
3282
+ `Never mind!' said the King, with an air of great relief.
3283
+ `Call the next witness.' And he added in an undertone to the
3284
+ Queen, `Really, my dear, YOU must cross-examine the next witness.
3285
+ It quite makes my forehead ache!'
3286
+
3287
+ Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list,
3288
+ feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like,
3289
+ `--for they haven't got much evidence YET,' she said to herself.
3290
+ Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top
3291
+ of his shrill little voice, the name `Alice!'
3292
+
3293
+
3294
+
3295
+ CHAPTER XII
3296
+
3297
+ Alice's Evidence
3298
+
3299
+
3300
+ `Here!' cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the
3301
+ moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she
3302
+ jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with
3303
+ the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads
3304
+ of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding
3305
+ her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset
3306
+ the week before.
3307
+
3308
+ `Oh, I BEG your pardon!' she exclaimed in a tone of great
3309
+ dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could,
3310
+ for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and
3311
+ she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once
3312
+ and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.
3313
+
3314
+ `The trial cannot proceed,' said the King in a very grave
3315
+ voice, `until all the jurymen are back in their proper places--
3316
+ ALL,' he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as
3317
+ he said do.
3318
+
3319
+ Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she
3320
+ had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing
3321
+ was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable
3322
+ to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; `not that
3323
+ it signifies much,' she said to herself; `I should think it
3324
+ would be QUITE as much use in the trial one way up as the other.'
3325
+
3326
+ As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of
3327
+ being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and
3328
+ handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write
3329
+ out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed
3330
+ too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open,
3331
+ gazing up into the roof of the court.
3332
+
3333
+ `What do you know about this business?' the King said to
3334
+ Alice.
3335
+
3336
+ `Nothing,' said Alice.
3337
+
3338
+ `Nothing WHATEVER?' persisted the King.
3339
+
3340
+ `Nothing whatever,' said Alice.
3341
+
3342
+ `That's very important,' the King said, turning to the jury.
3343
+ They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when
3344
+ the White Rabbit interrupted: `UNimportant, your Majesty means,
3345
+ of course,' he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and
3346
+ making faces at him as he spoke.
3347
+
3348
+ `UNimportant, of course, I meant,' the King hastily said, and
3349
+ went on to himself in an undertone, `important--unimportant--
3350
+ unimportant--important--' as if he were trying which word
3351
+ sounded best.
3352
+
3353
+ Some of the jury wrote it down `important,' and some
3354
+ `unimportant.' Alice could see this, as she was near enough to
3355
+ look over their slates; `but it doesn't matter a bit,' she
3356
+ thought to herself.
3357
+
3358
+ At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily
3359
+ writing in his note-book, cackled out `Silence!' and read out
3360
+ from his book, `Rule Forty-two. ALL PERSONS MORE THAN A MILE
3361
+ HIGH TO LEAVE THE COURT.'
3362
+
3363
+ Everybody looked at Alice.
3364
+
3365
+ `I'M not a mile high,' said Alice.
3366
+
3367
+ `You are,' said the King.
3368
+
3369
+ `Nearly two miles high,' added the Queen.
3370
+
3371
+ `Well, I shan't go, at any rate,' said Alice: `besides,
3372
+ that's not a regular rule: you invented it just now.'
3373
+
3374
+ `It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.
3375
+
3376
+ `Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.
3377
+
3378
+ The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily.
3379
+ `Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling
3380
+ voice.
3381
+
3382
+ `There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said
3383
+ the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has
3384
+ just been picked up.'
3385
+
3386
+ `What's in it?' said the Queen.
3387
+
3388
+ `I haven't opened it yet,' said the White Rabbit, `but it seems
3389
+ to be a letter, written by the prisoner to--to somebody.'
3390
+
3391
+ `It must have been that,' said the King, `unless it was
3392
+ written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know.'
3393
+
3394
+ `Who is it directed to?' said one of the jurymen.
3395
+
3396
+ `It isn't directed at all,' said the White Rabbit; `in fact,
3397
+ there's nothing written on the OUTSIDE.' He unfolded the paper
3398
+ as he spoke, and added `It isn't a letter, after all: it's a set
3399
+ of verses.'
3400
+
3401
+ `Are they in the prisoner's handwriting?' asked another of
3402
+ they jurymen.
3403
+
3404
+ `No, they're not,' said the White Rabbit, `and that's the
3405
+ queerest thing about it.' (The jury all looked puzzled.)
3406
+
3407
+ `He must have imitated somebody else's hand,' said the King.
3408
+ (The jury all brightened up again.)
3409
+
3410
+ `Please your Majesty,' said the Knave, `I didn't write it, and
3411
+ they can't prove I did: there's no name signed at the end.'
3412
+
3413
+ `If you didn't sign it,' said the King, `that only makes the
3414
+ matter worse. You MUST have meant some mischief, or else you'd
3415
+ have signed your name like an honest man.'
3416
+
3417
+ There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the
3418
+ first really clever thing the King had said that day.
3419
+
3420
+ `That PROVES his guilt,' said the Queen.
3421
+
3422
+ `It proves nothing of the sort!' said Alice. `Why, you don't
3423
+ even know what they're about!'
3424
+
3425
+ `Read them,' said the King.
3426
+
3427
+ The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. `Where shall I begin,
3428
+ please your Majesty?' he asked.
3429
+
3430
+ `Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on
3431
+ till you come to the end: then stop.'
3432
+
3433
+ These were the verses the White Rabbit read:--
3434
+
3435
+ `They told me you had been to her,
3436
+ And mentioned me to him:
3437
+ She gave me a good character,
3438
+ But said I could not swim.
3439
+
3440
+ He sent them word I had not gone
3441
+ (We know it to be true):
3442
+ If she should push the matter on,
3443
+ What would become of you?
3444
+
3445
+ I gave her one, they gave him two,
3446
+ You gave us three or more;
3447
+ They all returned from him to you,
3448
+ Though they were mine before.
3449
+
3450
+ If I or she should chance to be
3451
+ Involved in this affair,
3452
+ He trusts to you to set them free,
3453
+ Exactly as we were.
3454
+
3455
+ My notion was that you had been
3456
+ (Before she had this fit)
3457
+ An obstacle that came between
3458
+ Him, and ourselves, and it.
3459
+
3460
+ Don't let him know she liked them best,
3461
+ For this must ever be
3462
+ A secret, kept from all the rest,
3463
+ Between yourself and me.'
3464
+
3465
+ `That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet,'
3466
+ said the King, rubbing his hands; `so now let the jury--'
3467
+
3468
+ `If any one of them can explain it,' said Alice, (she had
3469
+ grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit
3470
+ afraid of interrupting him,) `I'll give him sixpence. _I_ don't
3471
+ believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'
3472
+
3473
+ The jury all wrote down on their slates, `SHE doesn't believe
3474
+ there's an atom of meaning in it,' but none of them attempted to
3475
+ explain the paper.
3476
+
3477
+ `If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a
3478
+ world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And
3479
+ yet I don't know,' he went on, spreading out the verses on his
3480
+ knee, and looking at them with one eye; `I seem to see some
3481
+ meaning in them, after all. "--SAID I COULD NOT SWIM--" you
3482
+ can't swim, can you?' he added, turning to the Knave.
3483
+
3484
+ The Knave shook his head sadly. `Do I look like it?' he said.
3485
+ (Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)
3486
+
3487
+ `All right, so far,' said the King, and he went on muttering
3488
+ over the verses to himself: `"WE KNOW IT TO BE TRUE--" that's
3489
+ the jury, of course-- "I GAVE HER ONE, THEY GAVE HIM TWO--" why,
3490
+ that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--'
3491
+
3492
+ `But, it goes on "THEY ALL RETURNED FROM HIM TO YOU,"' said
3493
+ Alice.
3494
+
3495
+ `Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to
3496
+ the tarts on the table. `Nothing can be clearer than THAT.
3497
+ Then again--"BEFORE SHE HAD THIS FIT--" you never had fits, my
3498
+ dear, I think?' he said to the Queen.
3499
+
3500
+ `Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the
3501
+ Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off
3502
+ writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no
3503
+ mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was
3504
+ trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)
3505
+
3506
+ `Then the words don't FIT you,' said the King, looking round
3507
+ the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.
3508
+
3509
+ `It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and
3510
+ everybody laughed, `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the
3511
+ King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
3512
+
3513
+ `No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'
3514
+
3515
+ `Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. `The idea of having
3516
+ the sentence first!'
3517
+
3518
+ `Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.
3519
+
3520
+ `I won't!' said Alice.
3521
+
3522
+ `Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
3523
+ Nobody moved.
3524
+
3525
+ `Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full
3526
+ size by this time.) `You're nothing but a pack of cards!'
3527
+
3528
+ At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying
3529
+ down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half
3530
+ of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on
3531
+ the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently
3532
+ brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the
3533
+ trees upon her face.
3534
+
3535
+ `Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long
3536
+ sleep you've had!'
3537
+
3538
+ `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told
3539
+ her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange
3540
+ Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and
3541
+ when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, `It WAS a
3542
+ curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's
3543
+ getting late.' So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she
3544
+ ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.
3545
+
3546
+ But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her
3547
+ head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of
3548
+ little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began
3549
+ dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:--
3550
+
3551
+ First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the
3552
+ tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes
3553
+ were looking up into hers--she could hear the very tones of her
3554
+ voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back
3555
+ the wandering hair that WOULD always get into her eyes--and
3556
+ still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place
3557
+ around her became alive the strange creatures of her little
3558
+ sister's dream.
3559
+
3560
+ The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried
3561
+ by--the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the
3562
+ neighbouring pool--she could hear the rattle of the teacups as
3563
+ the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal,
3564
+ and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate
3565
+ guests to execution--once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the
3566
+ Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it--once
3567
+ more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's
3568
+ slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs,
3569
+ filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable
3570
+ Mock Turtle.
3571
+
3572
+ So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in
3573
+ Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and
3574
+ all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only
3575
+ rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the
3576
+ reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-
3577
+ bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd
3578
+ boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and
3579
+ all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the
3580
+ confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the
3581
+ cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's
3582
+ heavy sobs.
3583
+
3584
+ Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of
3585
+ hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how
3586
+ she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and
3587
+ loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about
3588
+ her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager
3589
+ with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of
3590
+ Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their
3591
+ simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
3592
+ remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
3593
+
3594
+ THE END