Novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland  

by Lewis Carroll  

CHAPTER I: Down the Rabbit-Hole 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her  sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or  twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading,  but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is  the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or  conversation?’  

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she  could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and  stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain  would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the  daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran  close by her.  

There was nothing so very  remarkable in that; nor did  Alice think it so very  much out of the way to hear the  Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’  (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her  that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it  all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually  took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket,  and looked at it, and  then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed  across her mind that she had  never before seen a rabbit  with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of  it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after  it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a  large rabbit-hole under the hedge. 

In another moment down went Alice after it, never  once considering how in the world she was to get out  again.  

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some  way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that  Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself  before she found herself falling down a very deep well.  

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly,  for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about  her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First,  she tried to look down and make out what she was  coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she  looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were  filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she  saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a  jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled  ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great  disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the  jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into  one of the cupboards as she fell past it.  

’Well!’ thought Alice to herself,  ‘after such a fall as this,  I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave  they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say  anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’  (Which was very likely true.)  

Down, down, down. Would the fall never  come to an  end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’  she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the  centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four  thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had  learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the  schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good  opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was  no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it  over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I  wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice  had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but  thought they were nice grand words to say.)  

Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right  through  the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out  among the people that walk with their heads downward!  The Antipathies, I think—’ (she was rather glad there  WAS no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all  the right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this  New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she  spoke—fancy curtseying  as you’re falling through the air!  Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an  ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll  never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up  somewhere.’  

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so  Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very  much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I  hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time.  Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me!  There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might  catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But  do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get  rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy  sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t  answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way  she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just  begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with  Dinah, and saying to her very  earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell  me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly,  thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and  dry leaves, and the fall was over.  

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her  feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark  overhead; before her was another long passage, and the  White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There  was not a moment to be lost:  away went Alice like the  wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a  corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’  She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but  the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a  long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging  from the roof.  

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all  locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one  side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly  down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out  again.  

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all  made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny  golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might  belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the  locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any  rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had  not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about  fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the  lock, and to her great delight it fitted!  

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small  passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down  and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you  ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and  wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head  though the doorway; ‘and even if my head would  go  through,’ thought poor Alice, ‘it would be of very little  use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut  up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to  begin.’ For, you see, so many  out-of-the-way things had  happened lately, that Alice had  begun to think that very  few things indeed were really impossible.  

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little  door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might  find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for  shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a  little bottle on it, (’which certainly was not here before,’  said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on  it in large letters. 

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little  Alice was not going to do that  in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look  first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or  not’; for she had read several nice little histories about  children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts  and other unpleasant things, all because they would  not  remember the simple rules their friends had taught them:  such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it  too long; and that if you cut your finger very  deeply with a  knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if  you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost  certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.  

However, this bottle was not  marked ‘poison,’ so Alice  ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in  fact, a sort of mixed flavour  of cherry-tart, custard, pine- apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very  soon finished it off.  

* * * *  

’What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting  up like a telescope.’  

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door  into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a  few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further:  she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you  know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether,  like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And  she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after  the candle is blown out, for  she could not remember ever  having seen such a thing.  

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she  decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for  poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had  forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to  the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it:  she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she  tried her best to climb up one  of the legs of the table, but  it was too slippery; and when  she had tired herself out  with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.  

’Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to  herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this  minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice,  (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she  scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes;  and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was  playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond  of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’  thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why,  there’s hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable  person!’  

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying  under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small  cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully  marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it  makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes  me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either  way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which  happens!’  

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which  way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her  head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite  surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be  sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice  had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but  out-of-the-way things to happen,  that it seemed quite dull  and stupid for life to go on in the common way.  

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.   

  

CHAPTER II: The Pool of Tears  

’Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much  surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to  speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest  telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she  looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of  sight, they were getting so far off). 

‘Oh, my poor little  feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings  for you now, dears? I’m sure I  shan’t be able! I shall be a  great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you  must manage the best way you can; —but I must be kind  to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the  way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of  boots every Christmas.’  

And she went on planning to herself how she would  manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought;  ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own  feet! And how odd the directions will look!  

   ALICE’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.    

       HEARTHRUG, 

           NEAR THE FENDER, 

                (WITH ALICE’S LOVE). 

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’  

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in  fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at  once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the  garden door.  

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down  on one side, to look through into the garden with one  eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she  sat down and began to cry again.  

’You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a  great girl like you,’ (she might well say this), ‘to go on  crying in this way! Stop this  moment, I tell you!’ But she  went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there  was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and  reaching half down the hall.  

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the  distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was  coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly  dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a  large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great  hurry, muttering to himself as he came, ‘Oh! the Duchess,  the Duchess! Oh! won’t  she be savage if I’ve kept her  waiting!’ Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask  help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir—’ The  Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and  the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he  could go.  

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was  very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on  talking: ‘Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And  yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve  been changed in the night? Let me think: was  I the same  when I got up this morning? I almost think I can  remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same,  the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!’ And she began thinking over all the  children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to  see if she could have been changed for any of them.  

’I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in  such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all;  and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of  things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides,  she’s  she, and  I’m  I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is!  I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see:  four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and  four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at  that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try Geography. London is the capital of Paris,  and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, that’s  all  wrong, I’m certain! I must have been changed for Mabel!  I’ll try and say ‘How doth the little—‘‘ and she crossed her  hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to  repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and  the words did not come the same as they used to do:—  

’How doth the little crocodile    

    Improve his shining tail, 

       And pour the waters of the Nile 

          On every golden scale! 

‘How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

    How neatly spread his claws, 

       And welcome little fishes in 

         With gently smiling jaws!’  

’I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor  Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on,  ‘I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in  that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play  with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve made  up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here!  It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying  ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that  person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m  somebody else’—but, oh dear!’ cried Alice, with a sudden  burst of tears, ‘I do wish they would  put their heads down!  I am so very  tired of being all alone here!’ 

As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was  surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s  little white kid gloves while she was talking. ‘How can  I  have done that?’ she thought. ‘I must be growing small  again.’ She got up and went to the table to measure herself  by it, and found that, as nearly  as she could guess, she was  now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking  rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the  fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in  time to avoid shrinking away altogether.  

’That  was  a narrow escape!’ said Alice, a good deal  frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find  herself still in existence; ‘and now for the garden!’ and she  ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the  little door was shut again, and the little golden key was  lying on the glass table as before, ‘and things are worse  than ever,’ thought the poor child, ‘for I never was so  small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that  it is!’  

As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another  moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her  first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea,  ‘and in that case I can go back by railway,’ she said to  herself.

 (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and  had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go  to on the English coast you find a number of bathing  machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand  with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and  behind them a railway station.)

 However, she soon made  out that she was in the pool  of tears which she had wept  when she was nine feet high.  

’I wish I hadn’t cried so much!’ said Alice, as she swam  about, trying to find her way out. ‘I shall be punished for  it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!  That  will  be a queer thing, to be sure! However,  everything is queer to-day.’  

Just then she heard something splashing about in the  pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out  what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or  hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she  was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse  that had slipped in like herself.  

’Would it be of any use, now,’ thought Alice, ‘to speak  to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.’ So she began: ‘O Mouse, do  you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of  swimming about here, O Mouse!’ (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never  done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen  in her brother’s Latin Grammar, ‘A mouse—of a mouse— to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!’ The Mouse looked at  her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with  one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.  

’Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,’ thought Alice; 

 ‘I daresay it’s a French mouse, come over with William  the Conqueror.’ (For, with all her knowledge of history,  Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had  happened.) So she began again:  ‘Ou est ma chatte?’ which  was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The  Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to  quiver all over with fright. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried  Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s  feelings. ‘I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.’  

’Not like cats!’ cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate  voice. ‘Would you  like cats if you were me?’  

’Well, perhaps not,’ said Alice in a soothing tone:  ‘don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you  our cat Dinah: I think you’d take a fancy to cats if you  could only see her. She is such  a dear quiet thing,’ Alice  went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the  pool, ‘and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her  paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft  thing to nurse—and she’s such  a capital one for catching  mice—oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Alice again, for this  time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain  it must be really offended. ‘We won’t talk about her any  more if you’d rather not.’  

’We indeed!’ cried the Mouse, who was trembling  down to the end of his tail. ‘As if I would talk on such a  subject! Our family always hated  cats: nasty, low, vulgar  things! Don’t let me hear the name again!’  

’I won’t indeed!’ said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. ‘Are you—are you fond— of—of dogs?’ The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went  on eagerly: ‘There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you  know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch  things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for  its dinner, and all sorts of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says  it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills  all the rats and—oh dear!’ cried Alice in a sorrowful tone,  ‘I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!’ For the Mouse  was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and  making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

  

So she called softly after it, ‘Mouse dear! Do come back  again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you  don’t like them!’ When the Mouse heard this, it turned  round and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale  (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low  trembling voice, ‘Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell  you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats  and dogs.’ 

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite  crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it:  there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and  several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the  whole party swam to the shore.  

CHAPTER III: A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale  

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled  on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.  

The first question of course was, how to get dry again:  they had a consultation about  this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking  familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. 

 Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who  at last turned sulky, and would only say, ‘I am older than  you, and must know better’; and this Alice would not  allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory  positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.  

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of  authority among them, called out, ‘Sit down, all of you,  and listen to me! I’ll  soon make you dry enough!’ They all  sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the  middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. 

’Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, ‘are you  all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all  round, if you please! ‘William the Conqueror, whose  cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by  the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late  much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and  Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—‘‘  

’Ugh!’ said the Lory, with a shiver.  

’I beg your pardon!’ said the Mouse, frowning, but  very politely: ‘Did you speak?’  

’Not I!’ said the Lory hastily.  

’I thought you did,’ said the Mouse. ‘—I proceed.  ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria,  declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic  archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—‘‘  

’Found what?’ said the Duck. 

’Found it,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course  you know what ‘it’ means.’  

’I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I  find a  thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The  question is, what did the archbishop find?’ 

The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly  went on, ‘’—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. 

William’s conduct at first was moderate. 

But the insolence of his  Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?’ it  continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.  

’As wet as ever,’ said Alice in a melancholy tone: ‘it  doesn’t seem to dry me at all.’ 

’In that case,’ said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet,  ‘I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate  adoption of more energetic remedies—’  ’Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the  meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I  don’t believe you do either!’ And the Eaglet bent down its  head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered  audibly.  

’What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an  offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry  would be a Caucus-race.’  

’What is  a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted  much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought  that  somebody  ought to speak, and no one else seemed  inclined to say anything.  

’Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to  do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself,  some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed  it.)  

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle,  (’the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the  party were placed along the course, here and there. 

There  was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began  running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so  that it was not easy to know when the race was over. 

 However, when they had been running half an hour or so,  and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting,  and asking, ‘But who has won?’  

This question the Dodo could not answer without a  great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one  finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which  you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while  the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all  must have prizes.’  

’But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices  asked.  

’Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice  with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded  round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’  

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put  her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits,  (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed  them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all  round.  

’But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the  Mouse.  

’Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else  have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to  Alice.  

’Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.  

’Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.  

Then they all crowded round her once more, while the  Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg  your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had  finished this short speech, they all cheered.  

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all  looked so grave that she did not  dare to laugh; and, as she  could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and  took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.  

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some  noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that  they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and  had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last,  and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse  to tell them something more.  

’You promised to tell me your history, you know,’ said  Alice, ‘and why it is you hate—C and D,’ she added in a  whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again.  

’Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning  to Alice, and sighing.  

’It IS a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down  with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ‘but why do you call it  sad?’ And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse  was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something  like this:—  ’Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, ‘Let  us both go to law: I will prosecute you. —Come, I’ll take  no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning  I’ve nothing to do.’ Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a  trial, dear Sir,With no jury or judge, would be wasting our  breath.’ ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ said cunning old  Fury:"I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to  death.‘‘  

’You are not attending!’ said the Mouse to Alice  severely. ‘What are you thinking of?’  

’I beg your pardon,’ said Alice very humbly: ‘you had  got to the fifth bend, I think?’  

’I had not!’ cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.  

’A knot!’ said Alice, always ready to make herself  useful, and looking anxiously about her. ‘Oh, do let me  help to undo it!’  

’I shall do nothing of the sort,’ said the Mouse, getting  up and walking away. ‘You insult me by talking such  nonsense!’  

’I didn’t mean it!’ pleaded poor Alice. ‘But you’re so  easily offended, you know!’  

The Mouse only growled in reply.  

’Please come back and finish your story!’ Alice called  after it; and the others all joined in chorus, ‘Yes, please  do!’ but the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and  walked a little quicker.  

’What a pity it wouldn’t stay!’ sighed the Lory, as soon  as it was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the  opportunity of saying to her daughter ‘Ah, my dear! Let  this be a lesson to you never to lose your  temper!’ ‘Hold  your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab, a little snappishly.  ‘You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!’  

’I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!’ said Alice  aloud, addressing nobody in particular. ‘She’d soon fetch it  back!’  

’And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the  question?’ said the Lory.  

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk  about her pet: ‘Dinah’s our cat.  And she’s such a capital  one for catching mice you can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!’  

This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old  Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully,  remarking, ‘I really must be getting home; the night-air  doesn’t suit my throat!’ and a Canary called out in a  trembling voice to its children, ‘Come away, my dears! It’s  high time you were all in bed!’ On various pretexts they  all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.  

’I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!’ she said to herself in  a melancholy tone. ‘Nobody seems to like her, down  here, and I’m sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my  dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!’  And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very  lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had  changed his mind, and was coming back to finish his story.  

  

CHAPTER IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill  

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost  something; and she heard it muttering to itself ‘The  Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and  whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are  ferrets! Where can  I have dropped them, I wonder?’ Alice  guessed in a moment that it  was looking for the fan and  the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly  began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to  be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her  swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table  and the little door, had vanished completely. 

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went  hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone,  ‘Why, Mary Ann, what are  you doing out here? Run  home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a  fan! Quick, now!’ And Alice was so much frightened that  she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without  trying to explain the mistake it had made.  

’He took me for his housemaid,’ she said to herself as  she ran. ‘How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I  am! But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I  can find them.’ As she said this, she came upon a neat little  house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with  the name ‘W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it. She went in  without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest  she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of  the house before she had found the fan and gloves. 

’How queer it seems,’ Alice said to herself, ‘to be going  messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on  messages next!’ And she began fancying the sort of thing  that would happen: ‘"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and  get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, nurse! But  I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I  don’t think,’ Alice went on, ‘that they’d let Dinah stop in  the house if it began ordering people about like that!’  

By this time she had found her way into a tidy little  room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had  hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid  gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and  was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a  little bottle that stood near the looking- glass. There was  no label this time with the words ‘DRINK ME,’ but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. ‘I know  something  interesting is sure to happen,’ she said to herself,  ‘whenever I eat or drink anything; so I’ll just see what this  bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for  really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!’  

It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had  expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found  her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to  save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down  the bottle, saying to herself ‘That’s quite enough—I hope  I shan’t grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the  door—I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so much!’  

Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing,  and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put  one arm out of the window, and one foot up the  chimney, and said to herself ‘Now I can do no more,  whatever happens. What will  become of me?’  

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had  its full effect, and she grew no larger: still it was very  uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of  chance of her ever getting out  of the room again, no  wonder she felt unhappy. 

’It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice,  ‘when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and  being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I  hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet— it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder  what can  have happened to me! When I used to read fairy- tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and  now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a  book written about me, that there ought! And when I  grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,’ she  added in a sorrowful tone; ‘at least there’s no room to  grow up any more here.’  

’But then,’ thought Alice, ‘shall I never  get any older  than I am now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to  be an old woman— but then—always to have lessons to  learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!’  

’Oh, you foolish Alice!’ she answered herself. ‘How can  you learn lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for  you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!’  

And so she went on, taking first one side and then the  other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and  stopped to listen.  

’Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ said the voice. ‘Fetch me my  gloves this moment!’ Then came a little pattering of feet  on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look  for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite  forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as  large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it.  

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to  open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice’s  elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a  failure. Alice heard it say to itself ‘Then I’ll go round and  get in at the window.’ 

’That  you won’t’ thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen  into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. 

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—’Pat! Pat!  Where are you?’ And then a voice she had never heard  before, ‘Sure then I’m here! Digging for apples, yer  honour!’  

’Digging for apples, indeed!’ said the Rabbit angrily.  ‘Here! Come and help me out of this!’ (Sounds of more  broken glass.) 

’Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?’  

’Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!’ (He pronounced it  ‘arrum.’)  

’An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why,  it fills the whole window!’  

’Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.’ 

’Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take  it away!’  

There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only  hear whispers now and then; such as, ‘Sure, I don’t like it,  yer honour, at all, at all!’ ‘Do as I tell you, you coward!’  and at last she spread out her hand again, and made  another snatch in the air. This time there were two  little  shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. ‘What a number  of cucumber-frames there must be!’ thought Alice. ‘I  wonder what they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the  window, I only wish they could! I’m sure I don’t want to  stay in here any longer!’  

She waited for some time without hearing anything  more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the  sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: ‘Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I  hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it  here, lad!—Here, put ‘em up at this corner—No, tie ‘em  together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet— Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular— Here,  Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind  that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!’ (a  loud crash)—’Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy— Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! you  do  it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill!  the master says you’re to go down the chimney!’  

’Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?’  said Alice to herself. ‘Shy, they seem to put everything  upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this  fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think  I can kick a  little!’  

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she  could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn’t  guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about  in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself  ‘This is Bill,’ she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see  what would happen next.  

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of ‘There  goes Bill!’ then the Rabbit’s voice along—’Catch him,  you by the hedge!’ then silence, and then another  confusion of voices—’Hold up his head—Brandy now— Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What  happened to you? Tell us all about it!’ 

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (’That’s Bill,’  thought Alice,) ‘Well, I hardly know—No more, thank  ye; I’m better now—but I’m a deal too flustered to tell  you—all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in- the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!’  

’So you did, old fellow!’ said the others.

  

’We must burn the house down!’ said the Rabbit’s  voice; and Alice called out as loud as she could, ‘If you do.  I’ll set Dinah at you!’  

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to  herself, ‘I wonder what they will  do next! If they had any  sense, they’d take the roof off.’ After a minute or two,  they began moving about again, and Alice heard the  Rabbit say, ‘A barrowful will do, to begin with.’  

’A barrowful of what?’ thought Alice; but she had not  long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little  pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them  hit her in the face. ‘I’ll put a stop to this,’ she said to  herself, and shouted out, ‘You’d better not do that again!’  which produced another dead silence.  

Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were  all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a  bright idea came into her head. ‘If I eat one of these  cakes,’ she thought, ‘it’s sure to make some  change in my  size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it must make  me smaller, I suppose.’ 

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted  to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she  was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of  the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and  birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in  the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were  giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at  Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as  she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.  

’The first thing I’ve got to do,’ said Alice to herself, as  she wandered about in the wood, ‘is to grow to my right  size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that  lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.’

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly  and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had  not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she  was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp  bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.  

An enormous puppy was looking down at her with  large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying  to touch her. ‘Poor little thing!’ said Alice, in a coaxing  tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was  terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might  be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her  up in spite of all her coaxing.  

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit  of stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the  puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a  yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe  to worry it; then Alice dodged  behind a great thistle, to  keep herself from being run over; and the moment she  appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush  at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to  get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having  a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every  moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the  thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges  at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time  and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while,  till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its  tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half  shut.  

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making  her escape; so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite  tired and out of breath, and till the puppy’s bark sounded  quite faint in the distance.  

’And yet what a dear little puppy it was!’ said Alice, as  she leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned  herself with one of the leaves: ‘I should have liked  teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d only been the right  size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that I’ve got to  grow up again! Let me see—how IS it to be managed? I  suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?’  

The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large  mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.  

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the  edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met  those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.  

  

CHAPTER V: Advice from a Caterpillar  

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid,  sleepy voice.  

’Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.  

This was not an encouraging opening for a  conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I—I hardly  know, sir, just at present— at least I know who I WAS  when I got up this morning,  but I think I must have been  changed several times since then.’  

’What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. 

‘Explain yourself!’  

’I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’  

’I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.  

’I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,’ Alice replied  very politely, ‘for I can’t understand it myself to begin  with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very  confusing.’  

’It isn’t,’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Well, perhaps you haven’t found  it so yet,’ said Alice;  ‘but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will  some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly,  I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’  

’Not a bit,’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said  Alice; ‘all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.’  

’You!’ said the Caterpillar contemptuously. ‘Who are  you?’  

Which brought them back again to the beginning of  the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the  Caterpillar’s making such very  short remarks, and she drew  herself up and said, very gravely,  ‘I think, you ought to tell  me who you  are, first.’  

’Why?’ said the Caterpillar. 

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could  not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar  seemed to be in a very  unpleasant state of  mind, she turned  away.  

’Come back!’ the Caterpillar called after her. ‘I’ve  something important to say!’  

This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and  came back again.  

’Keep your temper,’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Is that all?’ said Alice, swallowing down her anger as  well as she could.  

’No,’ said the Caterpillar.  

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had  nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her  something worth hearing. For  some minutes it puffed  away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms,  took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, ‘So you  think you’re changed, do you?’ 

’I’m afraid I am, sir,’ said Alice; ‘I can’t remember  things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten  minutes together!’  

’Can’t remember what  things?’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Well, I’ve tried to say ‘How doth the little busy bee,’ but  it all came different!’ Alice replied in a very melancholy  voice.  

’Repeat, ‘you are old, Father William,‘‘ said the  Caterpillar.  

Alice folded her hands, and began:—  

’You are old, Father William,’ the young man said, ‘And  your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand  on your head— Do you think, at your age, it is right?’ 

’In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son, ‘I feared it  might injure the brain; But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have  none, Why, I do it again and again.’ 

’You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before, And  have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back- somersault in at the door— Pray, what is the reason of that?’ 

’In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, ‘I  kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment—one  shilling the box— Allow me to sell you a couple?’ 

’You are old,’ said the youth,  ‘and your jaws are too weak  For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with  the bones and the beak— Pray how did you manage to do it?’ 

’In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law, And argued  each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave  to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life.’ 

’You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose  That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on  the end of your nose— What made you so awfully clever?’ 

’I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’ Said  his father; ‘don’t give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all  day to such stuff? Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’ 

’That is not said right,’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Not quite  right, I’m afraid,’ said Alice, timidly; ‘some  of the words have got altered.’  

’It is wrong from beginning  to end,’ said the Caterpillar  decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.  

The Caterpillar was the first to speak.  

’What size do you want to be?’ it asked.  

’Oh, I’m not particular as to size,’ Alice hastily replied;  ‘only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.’  

’I don’t  know,’ said the Caterpillar.  

Alice said nothing: she had never been so much  contradicted in her life before,  and she felt that she was  losing her temper.  

’Are you content now?’ said the Caterpillar.  

’Well, I should like to be a little  larger, sir, if you  wouldn’t mind,’ said Alice:  ‘three inches is such a  wretched height to be.’  

’It is a very good height indeed!’ said the Caterpillar  angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly  three inches high).  

’But I’m not used to it!’ pleaded poor Alice in a piteous  tone. And she thought of herself, ‘I wish the creatures  wouldn’t be so easily offended!’  

’You’ll get used to it in time,’ said the Caterpillar; and  it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.  

This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak  again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook  itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled  away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, ‘One side  will make you grow taller, and the other side will make  you grow shorter.’  

’One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought  Alice to herself.  

’Of the mushroom,’ said the Caterpillar, just as if she  had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of  sight.  

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make  out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms  round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.  

’And now which is which?’ she said to herself, and  nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the  next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin:  it had struck her foot!  

She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden  change, but she felt that there was no time to be lost, as  she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat  some of the other bit. 

Her chin was pressed so closely  against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her  mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a  morsel of the lefthand bit.  

’Come, my head’s free at last!’ said Alice in a tone of  delight, which changed into  alarm in another moment,  when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be  found: all she could see, when she looked down, was an  immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk  out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.  

’What  can  all that green stuff be?’ said Alice. ‘And  where have  my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands,  how is it I can’t see you?’ She was moving them about as  she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little  shaking among the distant green leaves.  

As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands  up to her head, she tried to get her head down to them,  and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about  easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just  succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and  was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to  be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had  been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was  beating her violently with its wings.  

’Serpent!’ screamed the Pigeon.  

’I’m  not  a serpent!’ said Alice indignantly. ‘Let me  alone!’  

’Serpent, I say again!’ repeated the Pigeon, but in a  more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, ‘I’ve  tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!’  

’I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ said  Alice.  

’I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and  I’ve tried hedges,’ the Pigeon went on, without attending  to her; ‘but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!’  

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought  there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon  had finished.  

’As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,’ said  the Pigeon; ‘but I must be on the look-out for serpents  night and day! Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these  three weeks!’  

’I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,’ said Alice, who  was beginning to see its meaning.  

’And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,’  continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, ‘and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they  must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh,  Serpent!’  

’But I’m not  a serpent, I tell you!’ said Alice. ‘I’m a— I’m a—’ ’Well! what  are you?’ said the Pigeon. ‘I can see you’re  trying to invent something!’  

’I—I’m a little girl,’ said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she  remembered the number of changes she had gone through  that day.  

’A likely story indeed!’ said the Pigeon in a tone of the  deepest contempt. ‘I’ve seen a good many little girls in my  time, but never one  with such a neck as that! No, no!  You’re a serpent; and there’s no use denying it. I suppose  you’ll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!’  

’I have  tasted eggs, certainly,’ said Alice, who was a very  truthful child; ‘but little girls eat eggs quite as much as  serpents do, you know.’  

’I don’t believe it,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but if they do, why  then they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.’  

This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite  silent for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the  opportunity of adding, ‘You’re looking for eggs, I know  

that  well enough; and what does it matter to me whether  you’re a little girl or a serpent?’  

’It matters a good deal to me,’ said Alice hastily; ‘but  I’m not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I  shouldn’t want yours: I don’t like them raw.’  

’Well, be off, then!’ said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as  it settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down  among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept  getting entangled among the branches, and every now and  then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she  remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in  her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first  at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller  and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing  herself down to her usual height.  

It was so long since she had been anything near the  right size, that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used  to it in a few minutes, and began talking to herself, as  usual. ‘Come, there’s half my plan done now! How  puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m  going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve  got back to my right size: the next thing is, to get into that  beautiful garden—how is  that to be done, I wonder?’ As  she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.

 ‘Whoever lives  there,’ thought Alice, ‘it’ll never do to come upon them  this  size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!’ So  she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not  venture to go near the house till she had brought herself  down to nine inches high.  

  

CHAPTER VI: Pig and Pepper  

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a  footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she  considered him to be a footman because he was in livery:  otherwise, judging by his face  only, she would have called  him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his  knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery,  with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both  footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all  over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it  was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.  

The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he  handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, ‘For  the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play  croquet.’ The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn  tone, only changing the order of the words a little, ‘From  the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.’  

Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together.  

Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back  into the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she  next peeped out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the  other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring  stupidly up into the sky.  

Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.  

’There’s no sort of use in knocking,’ said the Footman, ‘and that for two reasons. First, because I’m on the same  side of the door as you are; secondly, because they’re  making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear  you.’ And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise  going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and  every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had  been broken to pieces.  

’Please, then,’ said Alice, ‘how am I to get in?’  

’There might be some sense in your knocking,’ the  Footman went on without attending to her, ‘if we had the  door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you  might knock, and I could let you out, you know.’ He was  looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and  this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. ‘But perhaps he can’t  help it,’ she said to herself; ‘his eyes are so very  nearly at  the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer  questions.—How am I to get in?’ she repeated, aloud.  

’I shall sit here,’ the Footman remarked, ‘till  tomorrow—’  

At this moment the door of the house opened, and a  large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman’s  head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against  one of the trees behind him.  

’—or next day, maybe,’ the Footman continued in the  same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened.  

’How am I to get in?’ asked Alice again, in a louder  tone.  

’Are  you to get in at all?’ said the Footman. ‘That’s the  first question, you know.’  

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so.  ‘It’s really dreadful,’ she muttered to herself, ‘the way all  the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!’  

The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity  for repeating his remark, with variations. ‘I shall sit here,’  he said, ‘on and off, for days and days.’  

’But what am I to do?’ said Alice.  

’Anything you like,’ said the Footman, and began  whistling.  

’Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,’ said Alice  desperately: ‘he’s perfectly idiotic!’ And she opened the  door and went in.  

The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full  of smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was  sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a  baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large  cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.  

’There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!’ Alice  said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing.  

There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the  Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was  sneezing and howling alternately without a moment’s  pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze,  were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the  hearth and grinning from ear to ear.  

’Please would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly,  for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners  for her to speak first, ‘why your cat grins like that?’  

’It’s a Cheshire cat,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s why.  Pig!’  

She said the last word with such sudden violence that  Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it  was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took  courage, and went on again:—  ’I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in  fact, I didn’t know that cats could  grin.’  

’They all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of ‘em do.’  

’I don’t know of any that do,’ Alice said very politely,  feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.  

’You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess; ‘and that’s a  fact.’  

Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and  thought it would be as well to introduce some other  subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on  one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and  at once set to work throwing everything within her reach  at the Duchess and the baby —the fire-irons came first;  then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes.  The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit  her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it  was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or  not.  

’Oh,  please  mind what you’re doing!’ cried Alice,  jumping up and down in an agony of terror. ‘Oh, there  goes his precious  nose’; as an unusually large saucepan flew  close by it, and very nearly carried it off.  

’If everybody minded their own business,’ the Duchess  said in a hoarse growl, ‘the world would go round a deal  faster than it does.’  

’Which would not  be an advantage,’ said Alice, who felt  very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of  her knowledge. ‘Just think of what work it would make  with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty- four hours to turn round on its axis—’  ’Talking of axes,’ said the Duchess, ‘chop off her head!’  

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she  meant to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the  soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on  again: ‘Twenty-four hours, I think; or is it twelve? I—’  ’Oh, don’t bother ME,’ said the Duchess; ‘I never  could abide figures!’And with that she began nursing her  child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line: 

’Speak roughly to your little boy, 

And beat him when he sneezes: 

He only does it to annoy, 

Because he knows it teases.’ 

CHORUS  

(In which the cook and the baby joined):—  ’Wow! wow! wow!’  While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song,  she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear  the words:—  

’I speak severely to my boy, 

I beat him when he sneezes; 

For he can thoroughly enjoy 

The pepper when he pleases!’ 

CHORUS  

’Wow! wow! wow!’  

’Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!’ the Duchess  said to Alice, flinging the baby  at her as she spoke. ‘I must  go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,’ and she  hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan  after her as she went out, but it just missed her.  

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a  queer- shaped little creature, and  held out its arms and legs  in all directions, ‘just like a star-fish,’ thought Alice. The  poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when  she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening  itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or  two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.  

As soon as she had made out  the proper way of nursing  it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then  keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to  prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. ‘If  I don’t take this child away with me,’ thought  Alice, ‘they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it  be murder to leave it behind?’ She said the last words out  loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off  sneezing by this time). ‘Don’t grunt,’ said Alice; ‘that’s not  at all a proper way of expressing yourself.’  

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very  anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it.  There could be no doubt that it had a very  turn-up nose,  much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were  getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not  like the look of the thing at all. ‘But perhaps it was only  sobbing,’ she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to  see if there were any tears.  

No, there were no tears. ‘If you’re going to turn into a  pig, my dear,’ said Alice, seriously, ‘I’ll have nothing more  to do with you. Mind now!’ The poor little thing sobbed  again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and  they went on for some while in silence.  

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, ‘Now,  what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?’  when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down  into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig,  and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it  further.  

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite  relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. ‘If it had  grown up,’ she said to herself, ‘it would have made a  dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig,  I think.’ And she began thinking over other children she  knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying  to herself, ‘if one only knew the right way to change  them—’ when she was a little startled by seeing the  Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.  

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked  good- natured, she thought: still it had very  long claws and  a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated  with respect.  

’Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did  not at all know whether it would like the name: however,  it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’  thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me,  please, which way I ought to go from here?’  

’That depends a good deal on where you want to get  to,’ said the Cat.  

’I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.  

’Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the  Cat.  

’—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an  explanation.  

’Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only  walk long enough.’  

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried  another question. ‘What sort of people live about here?’  

’In that  direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw  round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that  direction,’ waving the  other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like:  they’re both mad.’  

’But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice  remarked.  

’Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad  here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’  

’How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.  

’You must be,’ said the Cat,  ‘or you wouldn’t have  come here.’  

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she  went on ‘And how do you know that you’re mad?’  

’To begin with,’ said the Cat, ‘a dog’s not mad. You  grant that?’  

’I suppose so,’ said Alice.  

’Well, then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see, a dog growls  when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I  growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry.  Therefore I’m mad.’  

’I call it purring, not growling,’ said Alice.  

’Call it what you like,’ said the Cat. ‘Do you play  croquet with the Queen to-day?’  

’I should like it very much,’ said Alice, ‘but I haven’t  been invited yet.’  

’You’ll see me there,’ said the Cat, and vanished.  

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so  used to queer things happening. While she was looking at  the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.  

’By-the-bye, what became of the baby?’ said the Cat.  ‘I’d nearly forgotten to ask.’  

’It turned into a pig,’ Alice quietly said, just as if it had  come back in a natural way.  

’I thought it would,’ said the Cat, and vanished again.  

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it  did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on  in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live.  ‘I’ve seen hatters before,’ she said to herself; ‘the March  Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as  this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.’ As she said this, she looked up, and there  was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.  

’Did you say pig, or fig?’ said the Cat.  

’I said pig,’ replied Alice; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t  keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one  quite giddy.’  

’All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite  slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending  with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of  it had gone.  

’Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,’ thought  Alice; ‘but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing  I ever saw in my life!’  

She had not gone much farther before she came in  sight of the house of the March Hare: she thought it must  be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like  ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a  house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had  nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and  raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked  up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself ‘Suppose it  should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to  see the Hatter instead!’  

  

CHAPTER VII: A Mad Tea-Party  

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the  house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having  tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep,  and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their  elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very  uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as  it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’  

The table was a large one, but the three were all  crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No  room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming.  ‘There’s plenty  of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat  down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.  

’Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an  encouraging tone.  

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing  on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.  

’There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.  

’Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice  angrily.  

’It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being  invited,’ said the March Hare.  

’I didn’t know it was your  table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for  a great many more than three.’  

’Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been  looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and  this was his first speech.  

’You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice  said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’  

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this;  but all he said  was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’  

’Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice.  ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can  guess that,’ she added aloud.  

’Do you mean that you think you can find out the  answer to it?’ said the March Hare.  

’Exactly so,’ said Alice.  

’Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare  went on.  

’I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean  what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’  

’Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might  just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I  eat what I see’!’  

’You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare,  ‘that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I  like’!’  

’You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who  seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that ‘I breathe when I  sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!’  

’It is  the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and  here the conversation dropped, and  the party sat silent for  a minute, while Alice thought over all she could  remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t  much.  

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day  of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken  his watch out of his pocket, and  was looking at it uneasily,  shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.  

Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’  

’Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you butter  wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the  March Hare.  

’It was the best  butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.  

’Yes, but some crumbs must  have got in as well,’ the  Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the  bread-knife.’  

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it  gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked  at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than  his first remark, ‘It was the best  butter, you know.’  

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some  curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the  day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’  

’Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your  watch  tell you what year it is?’  

’Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s  because it stays the same year for such a long time  together.’  

’Which is just the case with mine,’ said the Hatter.  

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark  seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was  certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said,  as politely as she could.  

’The Dormouse is asleep again,’ said the Hatter, and he  poured a little hot tea upon its nose.  

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said,  without opening its eyes, ‘Of course, of course; just what I  was going to remark myself.’  

’Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said,  turning to Alice again.  

’No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘what’s the answer?’  

’I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.  

’Nor I,’ said the March Hare.  

Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something  better with the time,’ she said, ‘than waste it in asking  riddles that have no answers.’  

’If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter,  ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’  

’I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.  

’Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head  contemptuously. ‘I dare say you never even spoke to  Time!’  

’Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I  have to beat time when I learn music.’  

’Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t  stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with  him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock.  For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning,  just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a  hint to Time, and round goes  the clock in a twinkling!  Half-past one, time for dinner!’  

(’I only wish it was,’ the March Hare said to itself in a  whisper.)  ’That would be grand, certainly,’ said Alice  thoughtfully: ‘but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you  know.’  

’Not at first, perhaps,’ said the Hatter: ‘but you could  keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.’  

’Is that the way you  manage?’ Alice asked.  

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. ‘Not I!’ he  replied. ‘We quarrelled last March—just before he  went  mad, you know—’ (pointing with his tea spoon at the  March Hare,) ‘—it was at the great concert given by the  Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing  

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! 

How I wonder what you’re at!’ 

You know the song, perhaps?’  

’I’ve heard something like it,’ said Alice.  

’It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, ‘in this  way:—  

"Up above the world you fly, 

Like a tea-tray in the sky. 

Twinkle, twinkle—‘‘ 

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in  its sleep ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—’ and went on  so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.  

’Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,’ said the  Hatter, ‘when the Queen jumped up and bawled out,  ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!‘‘  

’How dreadfully savage!’ exclaimed Alice.  

’And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful  tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock  now.’  

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason  so many tea-things are put out here?’ she asked.  

’Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always  tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between  whiles.’  

’Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.  

’Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’  

’But what happens when you come to the beginning  again?’ Alice ventured to ask.  

’Suppose we change the subject,’ the March Hare  interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of this. I vote the  young lady tells us a story.’  

’I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed  at the proposal.  

’Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up,  Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on both sides at once.  

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t  asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I heard every  word you fellows were saying.’  

’Tell us a story!’ said the March Hare.  

’Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.  

’And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be  asleep again before it’s done.’  

’Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the  Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were  Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a  well—’  ’What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a  great interest in questions of eating and drinking.  

’They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after  thinking a minute or two.  

’They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice  gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’  

’So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘very ill.’  

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’  

’Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.  

’I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended  tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’  

’You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s  very easy to take more  than nothing.’  

’Nobody asked your  opinion,’ said Alice.  

’Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter  asked triumphantly.  

Alice did not quite know what  to say to this: so she  helped herself to some tea and  bread-and-butter, and then  turned to the Dormouse, and  repeated her question. ‘Why  did they live at the bottom of a well?’  

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think  about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-well.’  

’There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very  angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went ‘Sh! sh!’  and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil,  you’d better finish the story for yourself.’  

’No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t  interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.’  

’One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly.  However, he consented to go on. ‘And so these three little  sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—’  ’What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. 

’Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all  this time.  

’I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all  move one place on.’  

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed  him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place,  and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March  Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any  advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal  worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset  the milk-jug into his plate.  

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so  she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t understand. Where  did they draw the treacle from?’  

’You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the  Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw treacle out of a  treacle-well—eh, stupid?’  

’But they were in  the well,’ Alice said to the  Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.  

’Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘—well in.’  

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the  Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.  

’They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on,  yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things—everything  that begins with an M—’  

’Why with an M?’ said Alice.  

’Why not?’ said the March Hare.  

Alice was silent.  

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was  going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the  Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on:  ‘—that begins with an M, such  as mouse-traps, and the  moon, and memory, and muchness— you know you say  things are ‘much of a muchness’—did you ever see such a  thing as a drawing of a muchness?’  

’Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think—’  ’Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.  

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear:  she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse  fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least  notice of her going, though she looked back once or  twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last  time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.  

’At any rate I’ll never go there  again!’ said Alice as she  picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest tea- party I ever was at in all my life!’  

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees  had a door leading right into it. ‘That’s very curious!’ she  thought. ‘But everything’s curious today. I think I may as  well go in at once.’ And in she went.  

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close  to the little glass table. ‘Now, I’ll manage better this time,’  she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden  key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden.  Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she  had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a  foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and  then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden,  among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.  

  

CHAPTER VIII: The Queen’s Croquet- Ground  

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden:  the roses growing on it were white, but there were three  gardeners at it, busily painting  them red. Alice thought this  a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them,  and just as she came up to them she heard one of them  say, ‘Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over  me like that!’  

’I couldn’t help it,’ said Five, in a sulky tone; ‘Seven  jogged my elbow.’  

On which Seven looked up  and said, ‘That’s right,  Five! Always lay the blame on others!’  

You’d  better not talk!’ said Five. ‘I heard the Queen say  only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!’  

’What for?’ said the one who had spoken first.  

’That’s none of your  business, Two!’ said Seven.  

’Yes, it is  his business!’ said Five, ‘and I’ll tell him—it  was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.’  

Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun ‘Well,  of all the unjust things—’ when his eye chanced to fall  upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of  them bowed low.  

’Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why  you are painting those roses?’  

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two  began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this  here ought to have been a red  rose-tree, and we put a  white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it  out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So  you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to— ’ At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking  across the garden, called out ‘The Queen! The Queen!’  and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat  upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps,  and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.  

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all  shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their  hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these  were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two  and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal  children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came  jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they  were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests,  mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried  nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and  went by without noticing her.  Then followed the Knave  of Hearts, carrying the King’s  crown on a crimson velvet  cushion; and, last of all this  grand procession, came THE  KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.  

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie  down on her face like the three gardeners, but she could  not remember ever having heard of such a rule at  processions; ‘and besides, what would be the use of a  procession,’ thought she, ‘if people had all to lie down  upon their faces, so that they couldn’t see it?’ So she stood  still where she was, and waited.  

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all  stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely  ‘Who is this?’ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only  bowed and smiled in reply.  

’Idiot!’ said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently;  and, turning to Alice, she went on, ‘What’s your name,  child?’  

’My name is Alice, so please  your Majesty,’ said Alice  very politely; but she added, to herself, ‘Why, they’re only  a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’  

’And who are these?’ said the Queen, pointing to the  three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for,  you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern  on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she  could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or  courtiers, or three of her own children.  

’How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own  courage. ‘It’s no business of mine.’  

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring  at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with  her head! Off—’  

’Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and  the Queen was silent.  

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said  ‘Consider, my dear: she is only a child!’  

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to  the Knave ‘Turn them over!’  

The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.  

’Get up!’ said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and  the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began  bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and  everybody else.  

’Leave off that!’ screamed the Queen. ‘You make me  giddy.’ And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on,  ‘What have  you been doing here?’  

’May it please your Majesty,’ said Two, in a very  humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, ‘we  were trying—’  

’I see!’ said the Queen, who had meanwhile been  examining the roses. ‘Off with their heads!’ and the  procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining  behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to  Alice for protection.  

’You shan’t be beheaded!’ said Alice, and she put them  into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers  wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them,  and then quietly marched off after the others.  

’Are their heads off?’ shouted the Queen.  

’Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!’ the  soldiers shouted in reply.  

’That’s right!’ shouted the Queen. ‘Can you play  croquet?’  

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the  question was evidently meant for her.  

’Yes!’ shouted Alice.  

’Come on, then!’ roared the Queen, and Alice joined  the procession, wondering very much what would happen  next.  

’It’s—it’s a very fine day!’ said a timid voice at her side.  She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping  anxiously into her face.  

’Very,’ said Alice: ‘—where’s the Duchess?’  

’Hush! Hush!’ said the Rabbit  in a low, hurried tone.  He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and  then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her  ear, and whispered ‘She’s under sentence of execution.’  

’What for?’ said Alice.  

’Did you say ‘What a pity!’?’ the Rabbit asked.  

’No, I didn’t,’ said Alice: ‘I don’t think it’s at all a pity.  I said ‘What for?‘‘  

’She boxed the Queen’s ears—’ the Rabbit began.  Alice gave a little scream of  laughter. ‘Oh, hush!’ the  Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. ‘The Queen will  hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen  said—’  

’Get to your places!’ shouted the Queen in a voice of  thunder, and people began running about in all directions,  tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled  down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground  in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live  hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers  had to double themselves up  and to stand on their hands  and feet, to make the arches.  

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing  her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked  away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs  hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck  nicely straightened out, and was going to give the  hedgehog a blow with its head, it would  twist itself round  and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression  that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when  she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,  it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had  unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides  all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way  wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the  doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking  off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the  conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. 

The players all played at once without waiting for  turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the  hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting  ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ about once in  a minute.  

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not  as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that  it might happen any minute, ‘and then,’ thought she,  ‘what would become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of  beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s  any one left alive!’  

She was looking about for some way of escape, and  wondering whether she could get away without being  seen, when she noticed a curious  appearance in the air: it  puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a  minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said  to herself ‘It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have  somebody to talk to.’  

’How are you getting on?’ said the Cat, as soon as there  was mouth enough for it to speak with.  

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded.  ‘It’s no use speaking to it,’ she thought, ‘till its ears have  come, or at least one of them.’ In another minute the  whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her  flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very  glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no  more of it appeared.  

’I don’t think they play at all fairly,’ Alice began, in  rather a complaining tone, ‘and they all quarrel so  dreadfully one can’t hear oneself speak—and they don’t  seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are,  nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how  confusing it is all the things  being alive; for instance,  there’s the arch I’ve got to go  through next  walking about  at the other end of the ground—and I should have  croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran  away when it saw mine coming!’  

’How do you like the Queen?’ said the Cat in a low  voice.  

’Not at all,’ said Alice: ‘she’s so extremely—’ Just then  she noticed that the Queen  was close behind her,  listening: so she went on, ‘—likely to win, that it’s hardly  worth while finishing the game.’  

The Queen smiled and passed on.  

’Who are  you talking to?’ said the King, going up to  Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity.  

’It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,’ said Alice:  ‘allow me to introduce it.’  

’I don’t like the look of it at all,’ said the King:  ‘however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.’  

’I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.  

’Don’t be impertinent,’ said the King, ‘and don’t look  at me like that!’ He got behind Alice as he spoke.  

’A cat may look at a king,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve read that in  some book, but I don’t remember where.’  

’Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very  decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at  the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat  removed!’  

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties,  great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said, without even  looking round.  

’I’ll fetch the executioner myself,’ said the King eagerly,  and he hurried off.  

Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how  the game was going on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in  the distance, screaming with passion. She had already  heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for  having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of  things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she  never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went  in search of her hedgehog.  

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another  hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent  opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other:  the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across  to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it  trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.  

By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it  back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out  of sight: ‘but it doesn’t matter much,’ thought Alice, ‘as all  the arches are gone from this side of the ground.’ So she  tucked it away under her arm,  that it might not escape  again, and went back for a little more conversation with  her friend.  

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was  surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it:  there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the  King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while  all the rest were quite silent, and looked very  uncomfortable.  

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all  three to settle the question, and they repeated their  arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she  found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they  said.  

  

The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut  off a head unless there was a body  to cut it off from: that  he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t  going to begin at his  time of life.  

The King’s argument was, that anything that had a  head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk  nonsense.  

The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t  done about it in less than  no time she’d have everybody  executed, all round. (It was this  last remark that had made  the whole party look so grave and anxious.)  

Alice could think of nothing else to say but ‘It belongs  to the Duchess: you’d better ask her  about it.’  

’She’s in prison,’ the Queen said to the executioner:  ‘fetch her here.’ And the executioner went off like an  arrow.  

The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was  gone, and, by the time he  had come back with the  Dutchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the  executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while  the rest of the party went back to the game.  

  

CHAPTER IX: The Mock Turtle’s Story  

’You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you  dear old thing!’ said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm  affectionately into Alice’s, and they walked off together.  

Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant  temper, and thought to herself that perhaps it was only the  pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the  kitchen.  

’When I’m  a Duchess,’ she said to h erself, (not in a very  hopeful tone though), ‘I won’t have any pepper in my  kitchen at all. Soup does very well without—Maybe it’s  always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,’ she went  on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of  rule, ‘and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile  that makes them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such  things that make children  sweet-tempered. I only wish  people knew that: then they wouldn’t be so stingy about  it, you know—’  

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and  was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her  ear. ‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the  moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’  

’Perhaps it hasn’t one,’ Alice ventured to remark.  

’Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything’s got a  moral, if only you can find it.’ And she squeezed herself  up closer to Alice’s side as she spoke.  

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first,  because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly,  because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin  upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp  chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it  as well as she could.  

’The game’s going on rather better now,’ she said, by  way of keeping up the conversation a little.  

’’Tis so,’ said the Duchess: ‘and the moral of that is— ‘Oh, ‘tis love, ‘tis love, that makes the world go round!‘‘  

’Somebody said,’ Alice whispered, ‘that it’s done by  everybody minding their own business!’  

’Ah, well! It means much the same thing,’ said the  Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder  as she added, ‘and the moral of that  is—‘Take care of the  sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.‘‘  

’How fond she is of finding morals in things!’ Alice  thought to herself.  

’I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm  round your waist,’ the Duchess said after a pause: ‘the  reason is, that I’m doubtful about the temper of your  flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?’  

’He  might bite,’ Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at  all anxious to have the experiment tried.  

’Very true,’ said the Duchess:  ‘flamingoes and mustard  both bite. And the moral of that is—‘Birds of a feather  flock together.‘‘  

’Only mustard isn’t a bird,’ Alice remarked.  

’Right, as usual,’ said the Duchess: ‘what a clear way  you have of putting things!’  

’It’s a mineral, I think,’ said Alice.  

’Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to  agree to everything that Alice said; ‘there’s a large  mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is—‘The  more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.‘‘  

’Oh, I know!’ exclaimed Alice, who had not attended  to this last remark, ‘it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like  one, but it is.’ 

’I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess; ‘and the  moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or if  you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself  not to be otherwise than what  it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise  than what you had been would have appeared to them to  be otherwise.‘‘  

’I think I should understand that better,’ Alice said very  politely, ‘if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow  it as you say it.’  

’That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,’ the  Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.  

’Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than  that,’ said Alice.  

’Oh, don’t talk about trouble!’ said the Duchess. ‘I  make you a present of everything I’ve said as yet.’  

’A cheap sort of present!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they  don’t give birthday presents like that!’ But she did not  venture to say it out loud.  

’Thinking again?’ the Duchess asked, with another dig  of her sharp little chin.  

’I’ve a right to think,’ said Alice sharply, for she was  beginning to feel a little worried.  

’Just about as much right,’ said the Duchess, ‘as pigs  have to fly; and the m—’  But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice  died away, even in the middle of her favourite word  ‘moral,’ and the arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen in  front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a  thunderstorm.  

’A fine day, your Majesty!’ the Duchess began in a low,  weak voice.  

’Now, I give you fair warning,’ shouted the Queen,  stamping on the ground as she spoke; ‘either you or your  head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take  your choice!’  

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a  moment.  

’Let’s go on with the game,’ the Queen said to Alice;  and Alice was too much frightened to say a word, but  slowly followed her back to the croquet-ground.  

The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s  absence, and were resting in the shade: however, the  moment they saw her, they hurried back to the game, the  Queen merely remarking that  a moment’s delay would  cost them their lives.  

All the time they were playing the Queen never left off  quarrelling with the other players, and shouting ‘Off with  his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ Those whom she  sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of  course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and  all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice,  were in custody and under sentence of execution.  

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said  to Alice, ‘Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?’  

’No,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t even know what a Mock  Turtle is.’  

’It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,’ said  the Queen.  

’I never saw one, or heard of one,’ said Alice.  

’Come on, then,’ said the Queen, ‘and he shall tell you  his history,’  

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say  in a low voice, to the company generally, ‘You are all  pardoned.’ ‘Come, that’s  a good thing!’ she said to herself,  for she had felt quite unhappy at the number of executions  the Queen had ordered.  

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep  in the sun. (IF you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at  the picture.) ‘Up, lazy thing!’ said the Queen, ‘and take  this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his  history. I must go back and see after some executions I  have ordered’; and she walked off, leaving Alice alone  with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would be quite  as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage Queen: so  she waited.  

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it  watched the Queen till she was out of sight: then it  chuckled. ‘What fun!’ said the Gryphon, half to itself, half  to Alice.  

’What IS the fun?’ said Alice.  

’Why, she,’ said the Gryphon. ‘It’s all her fancy, that:  they never executes nobody, you know. Come on!’  

’Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,’ thought Alice, as she  went slowly after it: ‘I never was so ordered about in all  my life, never!’  

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock  Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little  ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear  him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him  deeply. ‘What is his sorrow?’ she asked the Gryphon, and  the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as  before, ‘It’s all his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow,  you know. Come on!’  

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at  them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.  

’This here young lady,’ said the Gryphon, ‘she wants  for to know your history, she do.’  

’I’ll tell it her,’ said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow  tone: ‘sit down, both of you,  and don’t speak a word till  I’ve finished.’  

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes.  Alice thought to herself, ‘I don’t see how he can even finish, if he doesn’t begin.’ But she waited patiently.  

’Once,’ said the Mock Turtle  at last, with a deep sigh,  ‘I was a real Turtle.’  

These words were followed by a very long silence,  broken only by an occasional exclamation of ‘Hjckrrh!’  from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the  Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying,  ‘Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,’ but she could  not help thinking there must  be more to come, so she sat  still and said nothing.  

’When we were little,’ the Mock Turtle went on at  last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and  then, ‘we went to school in the sea. The master was an old  Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—’  

’Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?’  Alice asked. 

’We called him Tortoise because he taught us,’ said the  Mock Turtle angrily: ‘really you are very dull!’  

’You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a  simple question,’ added the Gryphon; and then they both  sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink  into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock  Turtle, ‘Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!’  and he went on in these words:  

’Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t  believe it—’  ’I never said I didn’t!’ interrupted Alice.  

’You did,’ said the Mock Turtle.  

’Hold your tongue!’ added the Gryphon, before Alice  could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.  

’We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to  school every day—’  ’I’ve  been to a day-school, too,’ said Alice; ‘you needn’t  be so proud as all that.’  

’With extras?’ asked the Mock  Turtle a little anxiously.  

’Yes,’ said Alice, ‘we learned French and music.’  

’And washing?’ said the Mock Turtle.  

’Certainly not!’ said Alice indignantly.  

’Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the  Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. ‘Now at ours  they had at the end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing— extra.‘‘  

’You couldn’t have wanted it much,’ said Alice; ‘living  at the bottom of the sea.’  

’I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with  a sigh. ‘I only took the regular course.’  

’What was that?’ inquired Alice.  

’Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the  Mock Turtle replied; ‘and then the different branches of  Arithmetic— Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and  Derision.’  

’I never heard of ‘Uglification,‘‘ Alice ventured to say.  ‘What is it?’  

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What!  Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. ‘You know what  to beautify is, I suppose?’  

’Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means—to—make— anything—prettier.’  

’Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know  what to uglify is, you are  a simpleton.’  

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more  questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and  said ‘What else had you to learn?’  

’Well, there was Mystery,’ the Mock Turtle replied,  counting off the subjects on his flappers, ‘—Mystery,  ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling— the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to  come once a week: He  taught us Drawling, Stretching,  and Fainting in Coils.’  

’What was that  like?’ said Alice.  

’Well, I can’t show it you myself,’ the Mock Turtle  said: ‘I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.’  

’Hadn’t time,’ said the Gryphon: ‘I went to the Classics  master, though. He was an old crab, he  was.’  

’I never went to him,’ the Mock Turtle said with a  sigh: ‘he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.’  

’So he did, so he did,’ said the Gryphon, sighing in his  turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.  

’And how many hours a day did you do lessons?’ said  Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.  

’Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine  the next, and so on.’  

’What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.  

’That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon  remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.’  

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it  over a little before she made her next remark. ‘Then the  eleventh day must have been a holiday?’  

’Of course it was,’ said the Mock Turtle.  

’And how did you manage on the twelfth?’ Alice went  on eagerly.  

’That’s enough about lessons,’ the Gryphon interrupted  in a very decided tone: ‘tell her something about the  games now.’  

  

CHAPTER X: The Lobster Quadrille  

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of  one flapper across his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried  to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice.  ‘Same as if he had a bone in  his throat,’ said the Gryphon:  and it set to work shaking him and punching him in the  back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and,  with tears running down his cheeks, he went on again:—  

’You may not have lived much under the sea—’ (’I  haven’t,’ said Alice)— ‘and perhaps you were never even  introduced to a lobster—’ (Alice began to say ‘I once  tasted—’ but checked herself hastily, and said ‘No, never’)  ‘—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a  Lobster Quadrille is!’  

’No, indeed,’ said Alice. ‘What sort of a dance is it?’  

’Why,’ said the Gryphon, ‘you first form into a line  along the sea-shore—’  ’Two lines!’ cried the Mock  Turtle. ‘Seals, turtles,  salmon, and so on; then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly- fish out of the way—’  ’THAT  generally takes some time,’ interrupted the  Gryphon.  

’—you advance twice—’  

’Each with a lobster as a partner!’ cried the Gryphon.  

’Of course,’ the Mock Turtle  said: ‘advance twice, set  to partners—’  

’—change lobsters, and retire in same order,’ continued  the Gryphon.  

’Then, you know,’ the Mock Turtle went on, ‘you  throw the—’ 

’The lobsters!’ shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. 

’—as far out to sea as you can—’  

’Swim after them!’ screamed the Gryphon.  

’Turn a somersault in the sea!’ cried the Mock Turtle,  capering wildly about.  

’Change lobster’s again!’ yelled the Gryphon at the top  of its voice.  

’Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,’ said  the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the  two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad  things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly,  and looked at Alice.  

’It must be a very pretty dance,’ said Alice timidly.  

’Would you like to see a little of it?’ said the Mock  Turtle.  

’Very much indeed,’ said Alice.  

’Come, let’s try the first figure!’ said the Mock Turtle  to the Gryphon. ‘We can do without lobsters, you know.  Which shall sing?’  

’Oh, YOU  sing,’ said the Gryphon. ‘I’ve forgotten the  words.’ 

So they began solemnly dancing round and round  Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they  passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the  time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and  sadly:—  

’’Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail.  ‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.  See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are  waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the  dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you  join the dance? 

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be  When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to  sea!’ But the snail replied ‘Too far, too far!’ and gave a look  askance— Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not  join the dance. Would not, could  not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would  not, could not, would not,  could not, could not join the dance. 

’’What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied.  ‘There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The  further off from England the nearer is to France— Then turn not  pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the  dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you  join the dance?‘‘ 

’Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,’ said  Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: ‘and I do so  like that curious song about the whiting!’  

’Oh, as to the whiting,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘they— you’ve seen them, of course?’  

’Yes,’ said Alice, ‘I’ve often  seen them at dinn—’ she  checked herself hastily.  

’I don’t know where Dinn may be,’ said the Mock  Turtle, ‘but if you’ve seen them so often, of course you  know what they’re like.’  

’I believe so,’ Alice replied thoughtfully. ‘They have  their tails in their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.’  

’You’re wrong about the crumbs,’ said the Mock  Turtle: ‘crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they  have  their tails in their mouths; and the reason is—’ here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.—’Tell her  about the reason and all that,’ he said to the Gryphon.  

’The reason is,’ said the Gryphon, ‘that they would  go  with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to  sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails  fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again.  That’s all.’  

’Thank you,’ said Alice, ‘it’s very interesting. I never  knew so much about a whiting before.’  

’I can tell you more than that, if you like,’ said the  Gryphon. ‘Do you know why it’s called a whiting?’  

’I never thought about it,’ said Alice. ‘Why?’  

’It does the boots and shoes.’  the Gryphon replied very  solemnly.  

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. ‘Does the boots and  shoes!’ she repeated in a wondering tone.  

’Why, what are your  shoes done with?’ said the  Gryphon. ‘I mean, what makes them so shiny?’  

Alice looked down at them, and considered a little  before she gave her answer. ‘They’re done with blacking,  I believe.’  

’Boots and shoes under the sea,’ the Gryphon went on  in a deep voice, ‘are done with a whiting. Now you  know.’ 

’And what are they made of?’ Alice asked in a tone of  great curiosity.  

’Soles and eels, of course,’ the Gryphon replied rather  impatiently: ‘any shrimp could have told you that.’  

’If I’d been the whiting,’ said Alice, whose thoughts  were still running on the song, ‘I’d have said to the  porpoise, ‘Keep back, please: we don’t want you  with us!‘‘  

’They were obliged to have him with them,’ the Mock  Turtle said: ‘no wise fish would go anywhere without a  porpoise.’  

’Wouldn’t it really?’ said Alice in a tone of great  surprise.  

’Of course not,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘why, if a fish  came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should  say ‘With what porpoise?‘‘  

’Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?’ said Alice.  

’I mean what I say,’ the Mock Turtle replied in an  offended tone. And the Gryphon added ‘Come, let’s hear  some of your  adventures.’  

’I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this  morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going  back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’  

’Explain all that,’ said the Mock Turtle.    

’No, no! The adventures first,’ said the Gryphon in an  impatient tone: ‘explanations take such a dreadful time.’  

So Alice began telling them her adventures from the  time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little  nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close  to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and  mouths so very  wide, but she gained courage as she went  on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the  part about her repeating ’You are old, Father William,’  to  the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and  then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said ‘That’s  very curious.’  

’It’s all about as curious as it can be,’ said the Gryphon.  

’It all came different!’ the Mock Turtle repeated  thoughtfully. ‘I should like to hear her try and repeat  something now. Tell her to begin.’ He looked at the  Gryphon as if he thought it  had some kind of authority  over Alice.  

’Stand up and repeat ‘‘Tis the voice of the sluggard,‘‘ said the Gryphon.  

’How the creatures order one about, and make one  repeat lessons!’ thought Alice; ‘I might as well be at school  at once.’ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but  her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came  very queer indeed:—  

’’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,  ‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ As  a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt  and his buttons, and turns out his toes.’  

[later editions continued as follows When the sands are  all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous  tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are  around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]  

’That’s different from what I used to say when I was a  child,’ said the Gryphon.  

’Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Mock Turtle;  ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’  

Alice said nothing; she had  sat down with her face in  her hands, wondering if anything would ever  happen in a  natural way again.  

’I should like to have it explained,’ said the Mock  Turtle.  

’She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on  with the next verse.’  

’But about his toes?’ the Mock Turtle persisted. ‘How  could  he turn them out with his nose, you know?’  

’It’s the first position in dancing.’ Alice said; but was  dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to  change the subject.  

’Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated  impatiently: ‘it begins ‘I passed by his garden.‘‘  

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it  would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling  voice:—  

’I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the  Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—’ 

[later editions continued as follows: The  Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, While the Owl had  the dish as its share of the treat. When the pie was all finished,  the Owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:  While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, And  concluded the banquet—]  

’What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Mock  Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain it as you go on?  It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’  

’Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon:  and Alice was only too glad to do so.  

’Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?’  the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you like the Mock  Turtle to sing you a song?’  

’Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so  kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a  rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No  accounting for tastes! Sing  her ‘Turtle Soup,’ will you, old fellow?’  

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice  sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:—  

’Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen!  Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening,  beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Beau— ootiful Soo—oop! Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! Soo—oop of the  e—e—evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup! 

’Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, Game, or any other  dish? Who would not give all else for two pennyworth only of  beautiful Soup? Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Beau— ootiful Soo—oop! Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! Soo—oop of the  e—e—evening, Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!’ 

’Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Mock  Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of ‘The  trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.  

’Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by  the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the  song.  

’What trial is it?’ Alice panted as she ran; but the  Gryphon only answered ‘Come on!’ and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze  that followed them, the melancholy words:—  

’Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup!’ 

  

CHAPTER XI: Who Stole the Tarts?  

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their  throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled  about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as  the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before  them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him;  and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet  in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the  very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of  tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite  hungry to look at them—’I wish they’d get the trial done,’  she thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’ But there  seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at  everything about her, to pass away the time.  

Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but  she had read about them in books, and she was quite  pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly  everything there. ‘That’s the judge,’ she said to herself,  ‘because of his great wig.’  

The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore  his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all  comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.  

’And that’s the jury-box,’ thought Alice, ‘and those  twelve creatures,’ (she was obliged to say ‘creatures,’ you  see, because some of them were animals, and some were  birds,) ‘I suppose they are the jurors.’ She said this last  word two or three times over to herself, being rather  proud of it: for she thought, and  rightly too, that very few  little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all.  However, ‘jury-men’ would have done just as well.  

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates.  ‘What are they doing?’ Alice whispered to the Gryphon.  ‘They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the  trial’s begun.’  

’They’re putting down their names,’ the Gryphon  whispered in reply, ‘for fear they should forget them  before the end of the trial.’  

’Stupid things!’ Alice began in  a loud, indignant voice,  but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out,  ‘Silence in the court!’ and the King put on his spectacles  and looked anxiously round, to make out who was  talking.  

Alice could see, as well as if  she were looking over their  shoulders, that all the jurors  were writing down ‘stupid    

things!’ on their slates, and she could even make out that  one of them didn’t know how to spell ‘stupid,’ and that he  had to ask his neighbour to tell him. ‘A nice muddle their  slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!’ thought Alice.

  

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of  course, Alice could not  stand, and she went round the  court and got behind him,  and very soon found an  opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that  the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not  make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all  about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for  the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left  no mark on the slate.  

’Herald, read the accusation!’ said the King.  

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the  trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read  as follows:—  

’The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer  day: The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, And took them  quite away!’ 

’Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.  

’Not yet, not yet!’ the Rabbit hastily interrupted.  ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’  

’Call the first witness,’ said the King; and the White  Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out,  ‘First witness!’  

The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a  teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the  other. ‘I beg pardon, your Majesty,’ he began, ‘for  bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when  I was sent for.’  

’You ought to have finished,’ said the King. ‘When did  you begin?’  

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had  followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the  Dormouse. ‘Fourteenth of March, I think  it was,’ he said.  

’Fifteenth,’ said the March Hare.  

’Sixteenth,’ added the Dormouse.  

’Write that down,’ the King said to the jury, and the  jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and  then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings  and pence. 

’Take off your hat,’ the King said to the Hatter.  

’It isn’t mine,’ said the Hatter.  

’Stolen!’ the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who  instantly made a memorandum of the fact.  

’I keep them to sell,’ the Hatter added as an  explanation; ‘I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.’  

Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began  staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.  

’Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be  nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’  

This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he  kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily  at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out  of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.  

Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation,  which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it  was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she  thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but  on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was  as long as there was room for her.  

’I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.’ said the Dormouse,  who was sitting next to her. ‘I can hardly breathe.’  

’I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m growing.’  

’You’ve no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse.  

’Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Alice more boldly: ‘you  know you’re growing too.’  

’Yes, but I  grow at a reasonable pace,’ said the  Dormouse: ‘not in that ridiculous fashion.’ And he got up  very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court.  

All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the  Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she  said to one of the officers of the court, ‘Bring me the list  of the singers in the last concert!’ on which the wretched  Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.  

’Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll  have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.’  

’I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a  trembling voice, ‘—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not  above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter  getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—’  

’The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.  

’It began  with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.  

’Of course twinkling begins  with a T!’ said the King  sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’  

’I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things  twinkled after that—only the March Hare said—’  

’I didn’t!’ the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.  

’You did!’ said the Hatter.  

’I deny it!’ said the March Hare.  

’He denies it,’ said the King: ‘leave out that part.’  

’Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—’ the Hatter  went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny  it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast  asleep.  

’After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more  bread- and-butter—’  

’But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury  asked.  

’That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.  

’You must  remember,’ remarked the King, ‘or I’ll have  you executed.’  

The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread- and-butter, and went down on one knee. ‘I’m a poor  man, your Majesty,’ he began.  

’You’re a very poor speaker,’ said the King.  

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was  immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As  that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it  was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at  the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea- pig, head first, and then sat upon it.)  

’I’m glad I’ve seen that done,’ thought Alice. ‘I’ve so  often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, ‘There  was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court,’ and I never  understood what it meant till now.’  

’If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,’  continued the King.  

’I can’t go no lower,’ said the Hatter: ‘I’m on the floor,  as it is.’  ’Then you may sit  down,’ the King replied.  

Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.  

’Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!’ thought Alice.  ‘Now we shall get on better.’  

’I’d rather finish my tea,’ said the Hatter, with an  anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of  singers.  

’You may go,’ said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly  left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.  

’—and just take his head off outside,’ the Queen added  to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight  before the officer could get to the door.  

’Call the next witness!’ said the King.  

The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried  the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was,  even before she got into the court, by the way the people  near the door began sneezing all at once.  

’Give your evidence,’ said the King.    

’Shan’t,’ said the cook.  

The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who  said in a low voice, ‘Your Majesty must cross-examine  THIS witness.’  

’Well, if I must, I must,’ the King said, with a  melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at  the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a  deep voice, ‘What are tarts made of?’  

’Pepper, mostly,’ said the cook.  

’Treacle,’ said a sleepy voice behind her.  

’Collar that Dormouse,’ the Queen shrieked out.  ‘Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of  court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!’  

For some minutes the whole court was in confusion,  getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they  had settled down again, the cook had disappeared.  

’Never mind!’ said the King, with an air of great relief.  ‘Call the next witness.’ And he added in an undertone to  the Queen, ‘Really, my dear, you  must cross-examine the  next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!’  

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over  the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness  would be like, ‘—for they haven’t got much evidence yet,’  she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the  name ‘Alice!’  

CHAPTER XII: Alice’s Evidence 

’Here!’ cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the  moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes,  and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over  the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the  jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there  they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a  globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset the week  before.  

’Oh, I beg  your pardon!’ she exclaimed in a tone of  great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly  as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running  in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they  must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box,  or they would die.  

’The trial cannot proceed,’ said the King in a very  grave voice, ‘until all the jurymen are back in their proper  places—  all,’ he repeated with great emphasis, looking  hard at Alice as he said do.  

Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste,  she had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor  little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way,  

being quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and  put it right; ‘not that it signifies much,’ she said to herself;  ‘I should think it would be quite  as much use in the trial  one way up as the other.’  

As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the  shock of being upset, and their slates and pencils had been  found and handed back to them, they set to work very  diligently to write out a history of the accident, all except  the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do  anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the  roof of the court.  

’What do you know about this business?’ the King said  to Alice.  

’Nothing,’ said Alice.  

’Nothing whatever?’ persisted the King.  

’Nothing whatever,’ said Alice.  

’That’s very important,’ the King said, turning to the  jury. They were just beginning to write this down on  their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted:  ‘Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course,’ he said in a  very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at  him as he spoke.  

’Unimportant, of course, I meant,’ the King hastily said,  and went on to himself in an undertone, ‘important— unimportant— unimportant—important—’ as if he were  trying which word sounded best.  

Some of the jury wrote it down ‘important,’ and some  ‘unimportant.’ Alice could see this, as she was near enough  to look over their slates; ‘but it doesn’t matter a bit,’ she  thought to herself.  

At this moment the King, who had been for some time  busily writing in his note-book, cackled out ‘Silence!’ and  read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more  than a mile hight to leave the court.’  

Everybody looked at Alice.  

’I’m  not a mile high,’ said Alice.  

’You are,’ said the King.  

’Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.  

’Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,’ said Alice: ‘besides,  that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.’  

’It’s the oldest rule in the book,’ said the King.  

’Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.  

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily.  ‘Consider your verdict,’ he said to the jury, in a low,  trembling voice.  

’There’s more evidence to come yet, please your  Majesty,’ said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great  hurry; ‘this paper has just been picked up.’    

’What’s in it?’ said the Queen.  

’I haven’t opened it yet,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘but it  seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to—to  somebody.’  

’It must have been that,’ said the King, ‘unless it was  written to nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.’  

’Who is it directed to?’ said one of the jurymen.  

’It isn’t directed at all,’ said the White Rabbit; ‘in fact,  there’s nothing written on the outside.’ He unfolded the  paper as he spoke, and added ‘It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a  set of verses.’ 

’Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?’ asked another  of they jurymen.  

’No, they’re not,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘and that’s the  queerest thing about it.’ (The jury all looked puzzled.)  

’He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,’ said the  King. (The jury all brightened up again.)  

’Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, ‘I didn’t write it,  and they can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the  end.’  

’If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, ‘that only makes  the matter worse. You must  have meant some mischief, or  else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.’  

There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the  first really clever thing the King had said that day.  

’That proves  his guilt,’ said the Queen.  

’It proves nothing of the sort!’ said Alice. ‘Why, you  don’t even know what they’re about!’  

’Read them,’ said the King.  

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I  begin, please your Majesty?’ he asked.  

’Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go  on till you come to the end: then stop.’  

These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—  

’They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to  him: She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. 

He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true): If  she should push the matter on, What would become of you? 

I gave her one, they gave him two, You gave us three or more;  They all returned from him to you, Though they were mine  before. 

If I or she should chance to be Involved in this affair, He trusts  to you to set them free, Exactly as we were. 

My notion was that you had been (Before she had this fit) An  obstacle that came between Him, and ourselves, and it. 

Don’t let him know she liked them best, For this must ever be  A secret, kept from all the rest, Between yourself and me.’ 

’That’s the most important  piece of evidence we’ve  heard yet,’ said the King, rubbing his hands; ‘so now let  the jury—’  

’If any one of them can explain it,’ said Alice, (she had  grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit  afraid of interrupting him,) ‘I’ll give him sixpence. I don’t  believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.’  

The jury all wrote down on their slates, ‘She  doesn’t  believe there’s an atom of meaning in it,’ but none of  them attempted to explain the paper.  

’If there’s no meaning in it,’ said the King, ‘that saves a  world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.  And yet I don’t know,’ he went on, spreading out the  verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; ‘I  seem to see some meaning in them, after all. ‘-said I could  not swim—’ you can’t swim, can you?’ he added, turning  to the Knave.  

The Knave shook his head sadly. ‘Do I look like it?’ he  said. (Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.) 

’All right, so far,’ said the King, and he went on  muttering over the verses to himself: ‘"We know it to be  true—’ that’s the jury, of course— ‘I gave her one, they gave him two—’ why, that must be what he did with the tarts,  you know—’  

’But, it goes on ‘they all returned from him to you,‘‘ said  Alice. 

’Why, there they are!’ said the King triumphantly,  pointing to the tarts on the table. ‘Nothing can be clearer  than that. Then again—‘before she had this fit--’ you never  had fits, my dear, I think?’ he said to the Queen.

  

’Never!’ said the Queen furiously, throwing an  inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little  Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he  found it made no mark; but he  now hastily began again,  using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it  lasted.)  

’Then the words don’t fit  you,’ said the King, looking  round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.  

’It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and  everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’  the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.  

’No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict  afterwards.’ 

’Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of  having the sentence first!’  

’Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.   

’I won’t!’ said Alice.  

’Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of  her voice. Nobody moved.  

’Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her  full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’  

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came  flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of  fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and  found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap  of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead  leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.  

’Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister; ‘Why, what a  long sleep you’ve had!’  

’Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!’ said Alice, and she  told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all  these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been  reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed  her, and said, ‘It was  a curious dream, dear, certainly: but  now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.’ So Alice got up  and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might,  what a wonderful dream it had been.  

But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her  head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she  too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her  dream:—  

First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again  the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright  eager eyes were looking up into hers—she could hear the  very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her  head to keep back the wandering hair that would  always  get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or seemed to  listen, the whole place around her became alive the  strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.  

The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit  hurried by—the frightened Mouse splashed his way  through the neighbouring pool—she could hear the rattle  of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared  their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen  ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once  more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee,  while plates and dishes crashed around it—once more the  shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate- pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs,  filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the  miserable Mock Turtle.    

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself  in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open  them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass  would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling  to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would  change to tinkling sheep- bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries  to the voice of the shepherd  boy—and the sneeze of the  baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer  noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour  of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in  the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s  heavy sobs.  

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister  of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown  woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper  years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and  how she would gather about her other little children, and  make THEIR eyes bright and eager with many a strange  tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long  ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows,  and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering  her own child-life, and the happy summer days.   

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THE END