# Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (B1 edition)

*Lewis Carroll*

## CHAPTER I. Down the Rabbit-Hole

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and having nothing to do. Once or twice she had looked 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 conversations?”

So she was thinking about it as well as she could, because the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid. She wondered whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain was worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies. Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing very *remarkable* in that. Alice did not think it very strange, either, to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (When she thought about it afterwards, she realised that she ought to have wondered at this. But at the time it all seemed quite natural.) But then the Rabbit actually *took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket*, looked at it, and hurried on. Alice jumped to her feet. The thought flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with a waistcoat-pocket. She had never seen one with a watch to take out of it, either. She was burning with curiosity, so she ran across the field after it. Luckily she was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it. She never once thought about how in the world she was going to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then it dipped suddenly downwards. It happened so suddenly that Alice had no time to think about stopping herself. The next thing she knew, she was falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly. 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 see 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 hanging on pegs. As she passed, she took down a jar from one of the shelves. It had a label that said “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great disappointment it was empty. She did not like to drop the jar, because she was afraid of killing somebody underneath. So she managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past.

“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they will 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. This was not a very good chance to show off her knowledge, because there was no one to listen to her. But it was still 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 she thought they were nice, grand words to say.)

Soon she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right *through* the earth! How funny it will seem to come out among the people who walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (She was rather glad that there was no one listening this time, because it didn’t sound like the right word at all.) “—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. Just think of curtseying while you are falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what an ignorant little girl she will think me for asking! No, it will never do to ask. Perhaps I shall see the name written up somewhere.”

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. “Dinah will miss me very much tonight, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they will 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. She went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” Sometimes she said, “Do bats eat cats?” For, you see, she couldn’t answer either question, so it didn’t matter much which way she asked it. She felt that she was falling asleep. She had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah. She was saying to her very seriously, “Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” Then 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 lose. Away went Alice like the wind, and she was just in time to hear the Rabbit 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 gone. She found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.

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

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, made entirely of solid glass. There was nothing on it except a tiny golden key. 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. At any rate, it would not open any of them. However, the second time round, she came upon a low curtain that she had not noticed before. 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 among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains! But she could not even get her head through the doorway. “And even if my head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew 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 were really impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table. She half hoped that she might find another key on it, or at least 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.) 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.” She had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, or eaten up by wild animals, or had other unpleasant things happen to them. It was all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them. For example, a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long. And if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds. She had never forgotten that if you drink a lot from a bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to make you ill, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was *not* marked “poison.” So Alice dared to taste it. She found 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.

* * *

“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 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 imagine what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out. She could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, she saw that nothing more was happening, and she decided to go into the garden at once. But, alas for poor Alice! When she got to the door, she found that she had forgotten the little golden key. When she went back to the table for it, she found that she could not possibly reach it. She could see it quite clearly through the glass. She tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery. 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. Sometimes she scolded herself so severely that tears came into her eyes. Once she remembered trying to box her own ears, because she had cheated herself in a game of croquet that 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 a very small cake inside. The words “EAT ME” were beautifully marked on it 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?” She held her hand on the top of her head to feel which way she was growing. She was quite surprised to find that she stayed 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 she finished the cake.

* * *

### Glossary

- **waistcoat-pocket**: a pocket in a waistcoat, which is a short piece of clothing without sleeves, worn over a shirt
- **hedge**: a line of bushes that makes a fence around a field or garden
- **marmalade**: a sweet food made from oranges, which people put on bread
- **Latitude and Longitude**: imaginary lines on maps that show exactly where a place is
- **curtsey**: a polite movement made by a girl or woman, bending the knees a little
- **telescope**: a long tube that can be made shorter by pushing its parts into each other
- **poker**: a metal stick that people use to move the burning wood in a fire
- **currants**: very small dried fruits, like little raisins

## CHAPTER II. The Pool of Tears

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice. (She was so surprised that for a 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 away.) “Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure *I* won’t be able to! I shall be a great deal too far away 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 will seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the address 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. She at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! Lying down on one side, she could only just look through into the garden with one eye. But getting 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. In the end there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching halfway down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she quickly dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit, returning, splendidly dressed. He had 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 anyone for help. So, when the Rabbit came near her, she began in a low, timid voice, “If you please, sir—” The Rabbit jumped violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and hurried away into the darkness as fast as he could go.

Alice picked up the fan and gloves. The hall was very hot, so she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking. “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! 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 who were 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, “because 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, because 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 matter. 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*—’” 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. I shall 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 will be no use for them to put their heads down and say, ‘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. She 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. As nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and she was still shrinking rapidly. She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding. She dropped it quickly, just in time to stop herself from shrinking away altogether.

“That *was* a narrow escape!” said Alice. She was a good deal frightened by the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still alive. “And now for the garden!” 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, “because 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. She had come to the general conclusion that wherever you go on the English coast, you find a number of bathing machines in the sea. You also find some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon found out that she was in the pool of tears that she had cried 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 suppose I shall be punished for it now by being drowned in my own tears! That *will* be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer today.”

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to see what it was. At first she thought it must be a walrus or a hippopotamus. But then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon saw 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 it very likely 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 seeing in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather curiously, and seemed to wink at her with one of its little eyes. But it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice. “I dare say it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no clear idea how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” This was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water and seemed to shake all over with fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice quickly, 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, angry voice. “Would *you* like cats if you were me?”

“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing voice. “Don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you would like 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. “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 very good one for catching mice—oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice again, because this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain that 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 shaking all the way down to the end of his tail. “As if *I* would talk about such a thing! 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. “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, and I should like to show him to you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with, oh, such long curly brown hair! He will fetch things when you throw them, and he will sit up and beg for his dinner, and all sorts of things. I can’t remember half of them. He belongs to a farmer, you know, and the farmer says he is so useful that he is worth a hundred pounds! He says the dog kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sad voice. “I’m afraid I’ve offended him again!” For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as he could go, and he was making quite a commotion in the pool as he went.

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

It was high time to go, because 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.

### Glossary

- **kid gloves**: gloves made of soft leather
- **fan**: a thing you wave in your hand to make the air move and keep you cool
- **ringlets**: long, curly pieces of hair
- **poky**: small, dark and not pleasant to live in
- **carrier**: a person who takes parcels from place to place with a cart
- **bathing machines**: little wooden huts on wheels, used long ago at the seaside for changing clothes before swimming
- **terrier**: a kind of small, lively dog
- **bristling**: having the hair stand up straight, because of anger or fear

## CHAPTER III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

They were indeed a queer-looking party that gathered on the bank. The birds had untidy, wet feathers. The animals had their fur clinging close to them. All of them were dripping wet, cross and uncomfortable.

The first question, of course, was how to get dry again. They talked about it together. After a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking with them as friends, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory. In the end the Lory turned sulky and would only say, “I am older than you, and must know better.” Alice would not accept this without knowing how old the Lory was. The Lory refused to tell its age, so 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 on him, because 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 the pope supported, was soon accepted by the English. They wanted leaders, and lately they had grown used to men taking power by force, and to 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 quickly.

“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “I will go on. ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him. And even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it wise—’”

“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 usually a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”

The Mouse did not notice this question. He hurriedly went on, “‘—found it wise to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the rudeness of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” he continued, turning to Alice.

“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a sad voice. “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 end, so that we can quickly try 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!” The Eaglet bent its head down to hide a smile. Some of the other birds laughed quietly, so that everyone could hear.

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

“What *is* a Caucus-race?” said Alice. She did not really want to know, but the Dodo had stopped as if it thought that *somebody* ought to speak, and no one else seemed ready to say anything.

“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, as you might like to try it 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.) Then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away!” They began running when they liked, and stopped when they liked. So it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, after they had been running for half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, “The race is over!” They all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”

The Dodo could not answer this question without a great deal of thought. It sat for a long time with one finger pressed against its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare in 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?” asked quite a chorus of voices.

“Why, *she*, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger. The whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!”

Alice had no idea what to do. 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.) She handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one for each of them.

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

“Of course,” the Dodo replied very seriously. “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 gave her the thimble, saying, “We beg you to accept this elegant thimble.” When it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.

Alice thought the whole thing very silly, but they all looked so serious that she did not dare to laugh. She could not think of anything to say, so 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. 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. 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 he 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 in wonder at the Mouse’s tail. “But why do you call it sad?” She kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so 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 listening!” 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 him. The others all joined in, “Yes, please do!” But the Mouse only shook his head impatiently and walked a little quicker.

“What a pity he wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as he was quite out of sight. An old Crab took the chance to say 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 sharply. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!”

“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, speaking to nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch him back!”

“And who is Dinah, if I might dare to ask the question?” said the Lory.

Alice replied eagerly, because she was always ready to talk about her pet. “Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a good 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 stir among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once. One old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, saying, “I really must be getting home. The night air doesn’t suit my throat!” A Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!” They all made different excuses and moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a sad voice. “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 again!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, because she felt very lonely and low. In a little while, however, she again heard the sound of little pattering footsteps in the distance. She looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind and was coming back to finish his story.

### Glossary

- **pope**: the head of the Catholic Church
- **earl**: a high-ranking nobleman in old England
- **archbishop**: a very important priest who is in charge of many churches
- **Caucus-race**: a silly race in a circle where nobody wins by speed
- **comfits**: small hard sweets
- **thimble**: a small cap that you wear on your finger when you sew
- **Fury**: the name of the dog in the poem
- **prosecute**: to accuse someone of a crime in a court of law
- **cur**: an unfriendly, bad-tempered dog

## CHAPTER IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit. He was trotting slowly back and looking around anxiously, as if he had lost something. Alice heard him muttering to himself, “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 at once that he was looking for the fan and the white kid gloves. She was very kind, so she began to hunt about for them. But they were nowhere to be seen. Everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool of tears. The great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit saw Alice as she hunted about. He called out to her in an angry voice, “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!”

Alice was so frightened that she ran off at once, in the direction he pointed. She did not try to explain his mistake.

“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—if I can find them.”

As she said this, she came to a neat little house. On the door was a bright brass plate with the name “W. RABBIT” cut into it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs. She was very afraid that she would meet the real Mary Ann and be sent out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves.

“How strange it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be running errands for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah will be sending me on errands next!” And she began to imagine the sort of thing that would happen. “‘Miss Alice! Come here at once, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘I’m coming in a minute, nurse! But I have to make sure the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they would let Dinah stay in the house if she 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. On the table, as she had hoped, were a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves. She took the fan and a pair of the gloves. She was just going to leave the room when her eye fell on a little bottle near the looking-glass. This time there was no label with the words “DRINK ME.” But she pulled out the cork anyway and put the bottle 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 will make me grow large again, because I’m really tired of being such a tiny little thing!”

It did, and much sooner than she had expected. Before she had drunk half the bottle, her head was pressing against the ceiling. She had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She quickly put down the bottle and said to herself, “That’s quite enough. I hope I won’t grow any more. As it is, I can’t get out of 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 she had to kneel down on the floor. In another minute there was not even room for that. She tried lying down, with one elbow against the door and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing. As a last hope, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney. Then she 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. But it was still very uncomfortable. There seemed to be no chance at all of her ever getting out of the room again, so it was no wonder that she felt unhappy.

“It was much nicer 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 strange, you know, this kind of life! I do wonder what *can* have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I thought 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, there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,” she added in a sad voice. “At least there’s no room to grow up any more *here*.”

“But then,” thought Alice, “will I *never* get any older than I am now? That will be a comfort, in 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. But after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and she 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. She trembled until she shook the house. She had quite forgotten that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit and had no reason to be afraid of him.

Soon the Rabbit came up to the door and tried to open it. But the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, so he did not succeed. Alice heard him say to himself, “Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.”

“*That* you won’t!” thought Alice. She waited until she thought she heard the Rabbit just under the window. Then 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 this she decided that he had probably fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something like that.

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s. “Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And then a voice she had never heard before said, “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!*” (There was the sound 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. Alice could only hear whispers now and then, such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at all!” and “Do as I tell you, you coward!” 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 only had to bring one. Bill’s got the other—Bill! Fetch it here, lad!—Here, put them up at this corner—No, tie them together first—They don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! They’ll do well enough. Don’t be so particular—Here, Bill! Catch hold of this rope—Will the roof hold?—Watch that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!” (There was a loud crash.) “Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I think—Who’s going to go down the chimney?—No, *I* won’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 has to come down the chimney, does he?” said Alice to herself. “Well, they seem to put everything on Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a lot of money. This fireplace is narrow, that’s true, but I *think* I can kick a little!”

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could. She waited until she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling about in the chimney, close above her. She couldn’t guess what sort of animal it was. Then she said to herself, “This is Bill,” 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 she heard the Rabbit’s voice alone: “Catch him, you by the hedge!” Then there was silence, and then another confusion of voices. “Hold up his head—Give him some brandy—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 you, I’m better now—but I’m much too confused 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. Alice called out as loud as she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you!”

There was a dead silence at once. Alice thought to herself, “I wonder what they *will* do next! If they had any sense, they would take the roof off.” After a minute or two they began moving about again. Alice heard the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin with.”

“A barrowful of *what?*” thought Alice. But she did not have to wonder for long. 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 she shouted out, “You’d better not do that again!” This produced another dead silence.

Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor. 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. She was delighted to find that she began shrinking at once. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house. Outside she found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle. Two guinea-pigs were holding him up and giving him 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 she 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. The second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.”

It sounded like an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged. The only difficulty was that she had not the smallest idea how to begin. While she was peering 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. It was feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor little thing!” said Alice in a coaxing voice, and she tried hard to whistle to it. But she was terribly frightened all the time. She thought that it might be hungry, and then it would very likely 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. The puppy jumped into the air with all four feet off the ground at once, with a yelp of delight. It rushed at the stick and pretended to fight it. Then Alice dodged behind a great thistle to keep from being run over. The moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy rushed at the stick again. It fell head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it. Alice thought it was very like playing a game with a cart-horse, and she expected every moment to be trampled under its feet. So she ran round the thistle again. Then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick. Each time it ran a very little way forwards and a long way back, barking hoarsely all the while. 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 chance to escape. She set off at once and ran until she was quite tired and out of breath, and until 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. She fanned herself with one of its 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 done? 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 in her situation. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself. She looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it. Then it came into her head 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. Her eyes met those of a large blue caterpillar. It 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.

### Glossary

- **executed**: killed as a punishment, by order of a ruler or a court
- **ferrets**: small, thin animals that people use to hunt rabbits
- **cucumber-frame**: a low glass box in a garden, used to grow cucumbers
- **slate**: a flat piece of grey stone, used for covering roofs
- **barrowful**: as much as one wheelbarrow can carry
- **Jack-in-the-box**: a toy with a figure that jumps out of a box when you open it
- **sky-rocket**: a firework that shoots high up into the sky
- **thistle**: a wild plant with sharp points on its leaves
- **buttercup**: a small wild flower with yellow petals
- **hookah**: a long pipe for smoking, with a tube

## 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 spoke to her in a slow, sleepy voice.

“Who are *you?*” said the Caterpillar.

This was not a good way to start 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, “because 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 one day you will have to turn into a chrysalis, you know. And after that you will turn into a butterfly. I should think you’ll feel that is a little strange, 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 strange to *me*.”

“You!” said the Caterpillar with scorn. “Who are *you?*”

This brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little annoyed that the Caterpillar made such *very* short remarks. She drew herself up and said very seriously, “I think you ought to tell me who *you* are, first.”

“Why?” said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question. Alice could not think of any good reason, and the Caterpillar seemed to be in a *very* unpleasant mood. So 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. Perhaps it might tell her something worth hearing after all. 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 to—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 sad 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 always 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 unusually fat;  
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—  
Please, what is the reason for that?”

“In my youth,” said the old man, 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—  
Please, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I studied 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 shyly. “Some of the words have been changed.”

“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar firmly. 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 about size,” Alice replied quickly. “Only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.”

“I *don’t* know,” said the Caterpillar.

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

“Are you happy 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 sad voice. And she thought to herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!”

“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Caterpillar. 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. It yawned once or twice and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom and crawled away in the grass. As it went, it only said, “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 stood looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were its two sides. It was perfectly round, so 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. She nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect. The next moment she felt a violent blow under 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 lose, as she was shrinking fast. 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 little piece of the left-hand bit.

* * *

“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight. But a moment later her delight changed into alarm, because she could not find her shoulders anywhere. When she looked down, all she could see was an immense length of neck. It 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 nothing seemed to happen, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves.

There seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, so she tried to get her head down to them. She was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just curved it down into a graceful zigzag and was going to dive in among the leaves. She found they were only the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering. Just then a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry. A large pigeon had flown into her face and was beating her hard with its wings.

“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon.

“I’m *not* a serpent!” said Alice angrily. “Let me alone!”

“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a quieter voice. Then it 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 listening 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 until 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 troubled,” said Alice, who was beginning to see what it meant.

“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” the Pigeon continued, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I would be free of them at last, they have to 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 scorn. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never *one* with a neck like 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, 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. This gave the Pigeon the chance to add, “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 quickly. “But I’m not looking for eggs, as it happens. And if I was, I wouldn’t want *yours*. I don’t like them raw.”

“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a sulky voice, as it settled down again into its nest.

Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, because her neck kept getting tangled in the branches. 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. She set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other. She grew sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had brought 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 to an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. “Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it will never do to come upon them *this* size. Why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she began nibbling at the right-hand bit again. She did not dare to go near the house until she had brought herself down to nine inches high.

### Glossary

- **hookah**: a long pipe for smoking, with a tube that passes through water
- **chrysalis**: the soft case that a caterpillar lives in before it becomes a butterfly
- **serpent**: a snake
- **supple**: able to bend and move easily
- **ointment**: a soft cream that you rub on your skin
- **suet**: hard fat from an animal, used in cooking
- **give yourself airs**: to behave as if you are better than other people
- **crouched**: bent low, with the knees bent

## CHAPTER VI. Pig and Pepper

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house and wondering what to do next. Suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood. (She thought of him as a footman because he was wearing livery. If she had judged only by his face, she would have called him a fish.) He knocked loudly on the door with his hand. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face and large eyes like a frog. Alice noticed that both footmen had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, so she crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

The Fish-Footman began by taking a great letter from under his arm. It was nearly as large as himself. He handed it to the other footman and said in a solemn voice, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated it in the same solemn voice, 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 tangled together.

Alice laughed so much at this that she had to run back into the wood, for fear they would hear her. When she next peeped out, the Fish-Footman was gone. The other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.

Alice went shyly 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. Second, because they’re making such a noise inside that no one could possibly hear you.” And certainly there *was* a most extraordinary noise going on inside. There was a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or a 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 listening 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. Alice thought this was very rude. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” she said to herself. “His eyes are so *very* near the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.” Then she repeated aloud, “How am I to get in?”

“I shall sit here,” the Footman said, “till tomorrow—”

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

“—or the next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same voice, exactly as if nothing had happened.

“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder voice.

“*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 was a good chance to repeat his remark, with some changes. “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 he began whistling.

“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice in despair. “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 now and then. As for the baby, it was sneezing and howling by turns, without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze were the cook and a large cat. The cat was sitting on the hearth, grinning from ear to ear.

“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little shyly, 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 in another moment she saw that it was meant for the baby and not for her. So she took courage and went on:

“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 them do.”

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

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

Alice did not like the tone of this remark at all. She thought it would be good to talk about something else. While she was trying to choose a subject, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire. At once she began 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. The baby was howling so much already that it was impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

“Oh, *please* mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down in terror. “Oh, there goes his *precious* nose!” An unusually large saucepan had flown 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 lot faster than it does.”

“Which would *not* be an advantage,” said Alice. She felt very glad to have a chance to show 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 was going to take the hint. But the cook was busily stirring the soup and did not seem to be listening. So Alice went on: “Twenty-four hours, I *think*. Or is it twelve? I—”

“Oh, don’t bother *me*,” said the Duchess. “I never could stand figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again. She sang a sort of lullaby to it, and she gave 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. (The cook and the baby joined in.)

“Wow! wow! wow!”

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down. The poor little thing howled so much 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. It was a queer-shaped little creature, and it 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. It kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again. For the first minute or two it was as much as she could do to hold it.

Soon she found the proper way of nursing it. She had to twist it up into a sort of knot and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so that it could not undo itself. Then 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 stopped sneezing by this time.) “Don’t grunt,” said Alice. “That’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.”

The baby grunted again. 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* turned-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose. Its eyes were also 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 she 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 a 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?” Then 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 any further.

So she set the little creature down. She 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. She was just saying to herself, “If one only knew the right way to change them—” when she was a little startled to see the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards away.

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 know at all 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, to explain.

“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 one 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 agree with 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 today?”

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

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

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

“By the way, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”

“It turned into a pig,” Alice said quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a natural way.

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

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again. But it did not appear. After a minute or two she walked on, in the direction where 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 as 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 dizzy.”

“All right,” said the Cat. This time it vanished quite slowly. It began with the end of the tail and ended with the grin, which stayed for 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 covered with fur. It was such a large house that she did not like to go nearer. First she nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom, and she raised herself to about two feet high. Even then she walked up towards the house rather timidly. She said to herself, “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!”

### Glossary

- **livery**: the special uniform that a servant wears
- **cauldron**: a very large pot for cooking
- **hearth**: the floor of a fireplace, where the fire burns
- **axis**: the imaginary line through the middle of the earth, around which it turns
- **axes**: the plural of both “axis” and “axe” (a tool for chopping)
- **lullaby**: a gentle song to help a baby sleep
- **star-fish**: a sea animal shaped like a star, with five arms
- **snout**: the long nose of an animal such as a pig
- **bough**: a large branch of a tree
- **raving mad**: completely crazy

## CHAPTER VII. A Mad Tea-Party

There was a table under a tree in front of the house. The March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it. A Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep. The other two were using it as a cushion. They rested their elbows on it and talked over its head. “That must be very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice. “But it is asleep, so I suppose it doesn’t mind.”

The table was a large one, but the three of them were crowded together at one corner. “No room! No room!” they cried when they saw Alice coming.

“There is *plenty* of room!” said Alice angrily. She sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in a friendly voice.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it except tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she said.

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

“Then it wasn’t very polite of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.

“It wasn’t very polite of you to sit down without being asked,” said the March Hare.

“I didn’t know it was *your* table,” said Alice. “It is laid for many more than three people.”

“Your hair needs cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great interest, and this was the first thing he had said.

“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said sharply. “It’s very rude.”

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide when he heard this. But all he *said* was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

“Good, we are going to have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they have started asking riddles. I think I can guess that one,” she added aloud.

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

“Exactly,” said Alice.

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

“I do,” Alice quickly replied. “At least—at least I mean what I say. That’s the same thing, you know.”

“It’s not the same thing at all!” 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 for you,” said the Hatter. Then the talk stopped, and the party sat silent for a minute. Alice thought about everything she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which was not much.

The Hatter was the first to speak. “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 with a worried face. He shook it every now and then and held it to his ear.

Alice thought for a little and then said, “The fourth.”

“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t be good for the works!” he added, looking angrily at the March Hare.

“It was the *best* butter,” the March Hare answered meekly.

“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 sadly. Then he dipped it into his cup of tea and looked at it again. But he could think of nothing better to say than what he had said before. “It was the *best* butter, you know.”

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some interest. “What a funny watch!” she said. “It tells the day of the month, and it doesn’t tell you what time it is!”

“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does *your* watch tell you what year it is?”

“Of course not,” Alice replied quickly. “But that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time.”

“Which is just the case with *mine*,” said the Hatter.

Alice felt very puzzled. What the Hatter said seemed to have no meaning at all, 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 on its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently. It said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course. That is just what I was going to say myself.”

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

“No, I give up,” Alice replied. “What’s the answer?”

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

“Nor I,” said the March Hare.

Alice sighed tiredly. “I think you could do something better with your time,” she said, “than waste it 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 proudly. “I don’t think you have ever even spoken to Time!”

“Perhaps not,” Alice answered carefully. “But I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”

“Ah! That explains it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand being beaten. Now, if you only stayed on good terms with him, he would do almost anything you liked with the clock. For example, suppose it was nine o’clock in the morning, just time to start lessons. You would only have to whisper a hint to Time, and the clock would go round in a moment! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said quietly to itself.)

“That would be wonderful, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully. “But then—I wouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”

“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter. “But you could keep it at half-past one as long as you liked.”

“Is that how *you* do it?” Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head sadly. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before *he* went mad, you know—” (he pointed his teaspoon at the March Hare) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts. I had to sing this:

‘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 like this,” the Hatter continued:

‘Up above the world you fly,  
Like a tea-tray in the sky.  
Twinkle, twinkle—’

Here the Dormouse shook itself and began to sing in its sleep, “*Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle*—” It went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

“Well, I had hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and shouted, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

“How terribly cruel!” cried Alice.

“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on sadly, “he won’t do anything I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that why there are so many tea-things on the table?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh. “It’s always tea-time, and we have no time to wash the things in between.”

“So you keep moving round the table, I suppose?” said Alice.

“Exactly,” said the Hatter. “We move on as the things get used up.”

“But what happens when you come back to the beginning again?” Alice dared to ask.

“Let’s change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote that the young lady tells us a story.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice. The idea alarmed her a little.

“Then the Dormouse will!” 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, weak voice. “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”

“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare.

“Yes, please do!” begged Alice.

“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again before it’s finished.”

“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry. “Their names were Elsie, Lacie and Tillie, and they lived at the bottom of a well—”

“What did they live on?” said Alice. She always took a great interest in questions about eating and drinking.

“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking for a minute or two.

“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice said gently. “They would have been ill.”

“So they were,” said the Dormouse. “*Very* ill.”

Alice tried to imagine what such a strange way 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 seriously.

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended voice, “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 is making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked happily.

Alice did not know what to say to this. So she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter. Then she turned to the Dormouse and asked her question again. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it. Then he said, “It was a treacle-well.”

“There’s no such thing!” Alice began very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare said, “Sh! Sh!” and the Dormouse said sulkily, “If you can’t be polite, you had better finish the story 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 angrily. But he agreed to go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—”

“What did they draw?” said Alice, forgetting her promise.

“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without thinking at all this time.

“I want a clean cup,” the Hatter interrupted. “Let’s all move one place on.”

He moved as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him. The March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice took the March Hare’s place, though she did not want to. The Hatter was the only one who gained anything from the change. Alice was much worse off than before, because the March Hare had just knocked the milk-jug over into his plate.

Alice did not want to upset the Dormouse again, so she began very carefully. “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. She did not want to notice the Hatter’s last remark.

“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse. “—Well in.”

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

“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, because it was getting very sleepy. “And they drew all kinds 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 to sleep. But the Hatter pinched it, and 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 a drawing of a muchness?”

“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very confused, “I don’t think—”

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

Alice could not bear this rudeness. She got up in great disgust and walked away. The Dormouse fell asleep at once, and neither of the others took any notice of her going. 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 will never go *there* again!” said Alice as she walked carefully through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I have ever been to in all my life!”

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

Once more she found herself in the long hall, close to the little glass table. “Now I will do better this time,” she said to herself. She began by taking the little golden key and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) until 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.

### Glossary

- **raven**: a large black bird.
- **writing-desk**: a table where a person sits to write letters.
- **riddle**: a question with a clever or funny answer.
- **beat time**: to mark the rhythm of music with your hand; the Hatter pretends it means to hit Time.
- **murdering the time**: singing or playing out of rhythm, so that the music is spoiled.
- **treacle**: a thick, sweet, dark syrup.
- **much of a muchness**: nearly the same; a saying that people use.
- **tea-things**: the cups, plates and teapot used for tea.

## CHAPTER VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden. The roses on it were white, but three gardeners were busily painting them red. Alice thought this was very curious, and she went nearer to watch them. Just as she came up to them, she heard one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t splash paint over me like that!”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Five in a sulky voice. “Seven pushed my elbow.”

Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always blame other people!”

“*You* had better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only yesterday that 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 threw down his brush. He had just begun, “Well, of all the unfair things—” when he saw Alice standing there, watching them. He stopped at once. The others looked round too, and all of them bowed low.

“Would you please tell me,” said Alice, a little shyly, “why you are painting those roses?”

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, “Well, the fact is, Miss, this tree ought to have been a *red* rose-tree. We put a white one in by mistake. If the Queen finds out, we will all have our heads cut off, you know. So we’re doing our best, Miss, before she comes, to—” At this moment Five, who had been looking anxiously across the garden, called out, “The Queen! The Queen!” The three gardeners at once threw themselves flat on their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs. They were all shaped like the three gardeners, long and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners. Next came the ten courtiers. They were decorated all over with diamonds, and they walked two by two, like the soldiers. After these came the royal children. There were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping happily along, hand in hand, in pairs. They were all decorated with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens. Among them Alice saw the White Rabbit. He was talking in a quick, nervous way and smiling at everything that was said. He went past without noticing her. Then came the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a deep red velvet cushion. And last of all in this grand procession came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

Alice wondered whether she should lie down on her face like the three gardeners. But she could not remember ever hearing of such a rule at processions. “And besides,” she thought, “what would be the use of a procession if everybody had to lie down on their faces, so that they couldn’t see it?” So she stood still where she was and waited.

When the procession came opposite Alice, they all stopped and looked at her. The Queen said sharply, “Who is this?” She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled.

“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently. Then she turned to Alice and went on, “What’s your name, child?”

“My name is Alice, if it pleases your Majesty,” said Alice very politely. But she added to herself, “Why, they are only a pack of cards, after all. I don’t need to be afraid of them!”

“And who are *these?*” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rose-tree. You see, they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as on the rest of the pack. So 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 red with fury. She glared at Alice for a moment like a wild animal and then screamed, “Off with her head! Off—”

“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and firmly, and the Queen was silent.

The King put his hand on her arm and said timidly, “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 loud, sharp voice. The three gardeners jumped up at once and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children and everybody else.

“Stop that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me dizzy.” Then she turned to the rose-tree and went on, “What *have* you been doing here?”

“If it pleases your Majesty,” said Two in a very humble voice, going down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—”

“*I* see!” said the Queen. She had been looking at the roses all this time. “Off with their heads!” The procession moved on. Three of the soldiers stayed behind to execute the unlucky gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

“You won’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood nearby. The three soldiers walked about for a minute or two, looking for them. Then they quietly marched off after the others.

“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen.

“Their heads are gone, if it pleases your Majesty!” the soldiers shouted back.

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

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

“Yes!” shouted Alice.

“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession. She wondered very much what would happen next.

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

“Very,” said Alice. “—Where is the Duchess?”

“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low, hurried voice. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke. Then he stood on 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 a pity at all. 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 voice. “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 like thunder. People began running about in all directions and falling over each other. But in a minute or two they were all settled, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a strange croquet-ground in her life. It was all ridges and furrows. The balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets were live flamingoes. The soldiers had to bend over and stand on their hands and feet to make the arches.

At first, Alice found it very hard to manage her flamingo. She got its body tucked comfortably under her arm, with its legs hanging down. But usually, just as she had straightened its neck nicely and was going to hit the hedgehog with its head, the flamingo *would* twist itself round and look up into her face. It had such a puzzled look that she could not help bursting out laughing. Then she would get its head down and start again. But it was very annoying to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself and was crawling away. Besides all this, there was usually a ridge or a furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog. And the soldiers who were bent over were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground. So Alice soon decided that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once, without waiting for turns. They quarrelled all the time and fought for the hedgehogs. Very soon the Queen was in a furious temper. She went stamping about and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once a minute.

Alice began to feel very uneasy. It was true that she had not had any dispute with the Queen yet. But she knew it might happen any minute. “And then,” she thought, “what would become of me? They are terribly fond of cutting off people’s heads here. The great wonder is that anyone is left alive!”

She was looking for a way to escape and wondering if she could get away without being seen. Then she noticed a strange shape in the air. It puzzled her very much at first. But after watching it for a minute or two, she saw that it was a grin. She said to herself, “It’s the Cheshire Cat. Now I will have somebody to talk to.”

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

Alice waited until the eyes appeared, and then she nodded. “It’s no use speaking to it,” she thought, “until its ears have come, or at least one of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared. Then Alice put down her flamingo and began to tell the Cat about the game. She was very glad to have someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think there was enough of it to see now, and no more of it appeared.

“I don’t think they play fair at all,” Alice began in a complaining voice. “And they all quarrel so terribly that you can’t hear yourself speak. They don’t seem to have any rules in particular. At least, if there are any, nobody pays attention to them. And you have no idea how confusing it is that all the things are alive. For example, the arch I have to go through next is walking about at the other end of the ground. And I would have hit the Queen’s hedgehog just now with mine, but 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 is so extremely—” Just then she saw that the Queen was close behind her, listening. So she went on, “—likely to win that it’s hardly worth finishing the game.”

The Queen smiled and walked on.

“Who *are* you talking to?” said the King, coming up to Alice and looking at the Cat’s head with great interest.

“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” said Alice. “Let me introduce it to you.”

“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 said.

“Don’t be rude,” 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 firmly. He called to the Queen, who was passing at that moment. “My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!”

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, big 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. She could hear the Queen’s voice far away, screaming with anger. She had already heard the Queen sentence three of the players to be executed because they had missed their turns. Alice did not like the look of things at all. The game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went to look for her hedgehog.

The hedgehog was fighting with another hedgehog. Alice thought this was an excellent chance to hit one of them with the other. The only problem was that her flamingo had gone across to the other side of the garden. Alice could see it trying helplessly to fly up into a tree.

By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both hedgehogs were out of sight. “But it doesn’t matter much,” thought Alice, “because all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.” So she tucked the flamingo under her arm so that it could not escape again, and went back to talk a little more with her friend.

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find a large crowd round it. The executioner, the King and the Queen were having an argument. They were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent and looked very uncomfortable.

The moment Alice appeared, all three asked her to settle the question. They repeated their arguments to her. But because they all spoke at once, she found it very hard to understand 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. He had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at *his* age.

The King’s argument was that anything with a head could be beheaded, and that the executioner should not talk nonsense.

The Queen’s argument was that if something wasn’t done about it at once, she would have everybody executed, all round. (This last remark made the whole party look so serious and worried.)

Alice could think of nothing to say except, “It belongs to the Duchess. You had 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 to fade away the moment he was gone. By the time he came back with the Duchess, it had disappeared completely. 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.

### Glossary

- **club**: a heavy stick; also one of the four kinds of playing cards (here the soldiers are clubs).
- **courtiers**: people who spend their time at the court of a king or queen.
- **procession**: a line of people walking together at a special event.
- **Knave**: a playing card (the jack); also an old word for a dishonest man.
- **croquet**: a garden game where you hit balls through small arches with a wooden hammer.
- **hedgehogs**: small animals covered in sharp spines, which roll into a ball.
- **flamingoes**: tall pink birds with very long legs and long necks.
- **executioner**: a person whose job is to kill people who are condemned by law.

## 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. She tucked her arm lovingly into Alice’s, and they walked off together.

Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant mood. She thought that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so fierce when they met in the kitchen.

“When *I* am a Duchess,” she said to herself (though not in a very hopeful voice), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen *at all*. Soup does very well without it. Maybe it is always pepper that makes people bad-tempered,” she went on. She was very pleased to have found a new kind of rule. “And vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and things like that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew *that*. Then they wouldn’t be so mean about it, you know—”

By this time she had quite forgotten the Duchess. She 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 right now what the moral of that is, but I will remember it in a minute.”

“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice dared to say.

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything has a moral, if only you can find it.” As she spoke, she squeezed closer to Alice’s side.

Alice did not like being so close to her. First, the Duchess was *very* ugly. Second, she was exactly the right height to rest her chin on Alice’s shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, Alice did not want to be rude, so she put up with it as well as she could.

“The game is going better now,” she said, to keep the conversation going a little.

“It is so,” said the Duchess. “And the moral of that is—‘Oh, it is love, it is 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. She dug 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.’”

“She loves 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 not sure about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?”

“He might bite,” Alice answered carefully. She did not want the experiment to be tried at all.

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

“But mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice said.

“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. She seemed ready to agree with everything Alice said. “There is 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!” cried Alice. She had not listened 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 would 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 would understand that better,” Alice said very politely, “if I had it written down. But I can’t quite follow it when you say it.”

“That’s nothing compared to what I could say if I wanted to,” the Duchess replied, pleased.

“Please 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 have said so far.”

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

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

“I have a right to think,” said Alice sharply, because 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 then, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away in the middle of her favourite word, “moral”. The arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen in front of them. Her arms were folded, and she was 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 made her choice, and she was gone in a moment.

“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to Alice. Alice was too frightened to say a word. She slowly followed the Queen back to the croquet-ground.

The other guests had used the Queen’s absence to rest in the shade. But the moment they saw her, they hurried back to the game. The Queen only said that a moment’s delay would cost them their lives.

All the time they were playing, the Queen never stopped quarrelling with the other players and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” The soldiers took away the players she sentenced. Of course, the soldiers had to stop being arches to do this. So after about half an hour there were no arches left. All the players, except the King, the Queen and Alice, were under arrest and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen stopped, 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 will tell you his history.”

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice to everyone there, “You are all pardoned.” “Come, *that’s* a good thing!” she said to herself. She had felt quite unhappy about the number of executions the Queen had ordered.

Very soon they came to a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Get up, lazy thing!” said the Queen. “Take this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see to some executions I have ordered.” She walked off and left Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature. But she thought it would be just as safe to stay with it as to go after that fierce Queen. So she waited.

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes. It watched the Queen until she was out of sight. Then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, half to itself and 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 was never ordered about so much in all my life, never!”

They had not gone far when they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance. He was sitting, sad and lonely, on a little ledge of rock. As they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She felt very sorry for him. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon. The Gryphon answered in almost 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. He looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but he 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 voice. “Sit down, both of you, and don’t speak a word until I’ve finished.”

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can *ever* 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. It was broken only by an odd cry of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon now and then, and by the Mock Turtle’s constant, heavy sobbing. Alice very nearly got up and said, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story.” But she could not help thinking that 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 he still sobbed 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. Then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the ground. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!” And the Mock Turtle went on:

“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you may not believe it—”

“I never said I didn’t!” Alice interrupted.

“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* have 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 angrily.

“Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle, sounding very relieved. “Now, at *ours*, at the end of the bill it said, ‘French, music, *and washing*—extra.’”

“You couldn’t have needed 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?” asked Alice.

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle answered. “And then the different parts of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision.”

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

The Gryphon lifted both its paws in surprise. “What! You never heard of uglifying!” it cried. “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 like asking any more questions about it. So she turned to the Mock Turtle and said, “What else did you have to learn?”

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting the subjects off on his flappers. “Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography. Then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel who came once a week. *He* taught us Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils.”

“What was *that* like?” said Alice.

“Well, I can’t show it to 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. Both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

“And how many hours a day did you have 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 strange plan!” cried Alice.

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon said. “Because they lessen from day to day.”

This was a new idea to Alice, and she thought about it a little before she spoke again. “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 said firmly, interrupting. “Tell her something about the games now.”

### Glossary

- **moral**: the lesson that a story or event teaches.
- **camomile**: a plant used to make a bitter tea.
- **barley-sugar**: a hard, sweet, golden sweet.
- **Birds of a feather flock together**: a saying: people who are alike like to be together.
- **pardoned**: forgiven, so that the punishment is cancelled.
- **Gryphon**: a made-up animal with an eagle’s head and wings and a lion’s body.
- **flappers**: the flat arms of a sea animal, used for swimming.
- **simpleton**: a person who is not clever.

## CHAPTER X. The Lobster Quadrille

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply and wiped one flipper across his eyes. He looked at Alice and tried to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice.

“It’s the same as if he had a bone in his throat,” said the Gryphon. It began to shake him and punch him in the back.

At last the Mock Turtle found his voice again. With tears running down his cheeks, he went on:

“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 she stopped herself quickly 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 dance is it?”

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “first you form a line along the sea-shore—”

“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on. Then, when you have cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—”

“*That* usually takes some time,” the Gryphon interrupted.

“—you move forward two steps—”

“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon.

“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said. “Move forward two steps, face your partners—”

“—change lobsters, and go back in the same order,” the Gryphon went on.

“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle continued, “you throw the—”

“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a jump 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, jumping wildly about.

“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

“Back to land again, and that’s all of the first figure,” said the Mock Turtle. He suddenly dropped his voice. The two creatures had been jumping about like mad things all this time. Now they sat down again, very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice shyly.

“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 of us shall sing?”

“Oh, *you* sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.”

So they began to dance solemnly round and round Alice. Every now and then they stepped on her toes when they passed too close. They waved their front paws 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 really can’t imagine 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—  
He 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 does it matter 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 don’t turn pale, dear 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. She felt 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 stopped herself quickly.

“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 think 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. “The crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they *do* 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 stuck 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 completely puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated in a surprised voice.

“Why, what are *your* shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what makes them so shiny?”

Alice looked down at them and thought for 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, with great curiosity.

“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied, rather impatiently. “Any shrimp could have told you that.”

“If I had been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still on the song, “I would have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, please! We don’t want *you* with us!’”

“They had to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said. “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”

“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice, very surprised.

“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle. “Why, if a fish came to *me* and told me he was going on a journey, I would say, ‘With what porpoise?’”

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

“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied, in an offended voice. 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 shyly. “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 impatiently. “Explanations take such a dreadful time.”

So Alice began to tell them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous at first, because the two creatures came 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 until she got to the part where she said “You are old, Father William” to the Caterpillar, and the words all came out different. 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 out different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I should like to hear her try to say something now. Tell her to begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of power over Alice.

“Stand up and say ‘It’s the voice of the sluggard,’” said the Gryphon.

“How these creatures order people about and make them say lessons!” thought Alice. “I might as well be at school.” However, she got up and began to say it. But her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came out very strange indeed:

It’s 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.

\[Later editions of the book added these lines:\]

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 like complete 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 quickly. “Go on with the next verse.”

“But what about his toes?” the Mock Turtle asked again. “How *could* he turn them out with his nose, you know?”

“It’s the first position in dancing,” Alice said. But she was terribly puzzled by the whole thing, and she 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 out wrong. 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—

\[Later editions of the book added these lines:\]

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 saying all that nonsense,” 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 stop,” said the Gryphon. 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. She spoke so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended voice, “Hm! There’s no explaining what people like! Sing her ‘*Turtle Soup*,’ will you, old fellow?”

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

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. 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. It took Alice by the hand and 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 faster. More and more faintly, on the breeze that followed them, came the sad words:

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

### Glossary

- **flipper**: the flat limb that a turtle or seal uses for swimming
- **Quadrille**: a formal dance for several pairs of dancers
- **shingle**: small stones on a beach
- **askance**: in a sideways way that shows you do not trust something
- **sluggard**: a lazy person
- **soles**: flat sea fish; the word also means the bottom parts of shoes
- **blacking**: black polish that makes shoes shiny
- **tureen**: a deep dish for serving soup
- **dainties**: small, delicious pieces of food
- **pennyworth**: the amount of something you can buy for one penny

## CHAPTER XI. Who Stole the Tarts?

The King and Queen of Hearts were sitting on their throne when Alice and the Gryphon arrived. A great crowd stood round them. There were all sorts of little birds and animals, and the whole pack of cards too. The Knave stood in front of them in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him. 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 there was a table with a large dish of tarts on it. They looked so good that Alice felt quite hungry as she looked at them. “I wish they would finish the trial,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began to look at everything around her to pass the time.

Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books. 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. He wore his crown over the wig. (Look at the picture at the front of the book if you want to see how he did it.) He did not look at all comfortable, and it certainly did not suit him.

“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures”—she had 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 to herself, because she was rather proud of it. She thought, quite rightly, that very few little girls of her age knew what it meant. However, “jury-men” would have been just as good.

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 write down yet, before the trial has begun.”

“They’re writing down their names,” the Gryphon whispered back, “for fear they will forget them before the end of the trial.”

“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, angry voice. But she stopped quickly, because the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the court!” The King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round to find out who was talking.

Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing “stupid things!” on their slates. She could even see that one of them did not know how to spell “stupid” and had to ask his neighbour. “Their slates will be in a fine muddle before the trial is over!” thought Alice.

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. Alice, of course, could *not* stand this. She went round the court and got behind him, and very soon she found a chance to take it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill the Lizard) could not understand what had happened to it. After he had looked everywhere for it, he had to write with one finger for the rest of the day. This was of very little use, because it left no mark on the slate.

“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King.

Then the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet. He unrolled the parchment scroll and read:

“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 interrupted quickly. “There is a great deal to come before that!”

“Call the first witness,” said the King. 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 your 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. The jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates. Then they added them up and changed the answer into shillings and pence.

“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter.

“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter.

“*Stolen!*” the King cried, turning to the jury. They quickly made a note of this.

“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added, to explain. “I have none of my own. I’m a hatter.”

Here the Queen put on her spectacles and began to stare at the Hatter. He turned pale and moved about nervously.

“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 give the witness any courage at all. He kept moving from one foot to the other and looking uneasily at the Queen. In his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

Just at this moment Alice had a very curious feeling. It puzzled her a good deal until she understood what it was. She was beginning to grow larger again! At first she thought she would get up and leave the court. But then she decided to stay 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 speed,” said the Dormouse, “not in that ridiculous way.” He got up very sulkily and crossed to the other side of the court.

All this time the Queen had never stopped staring at the Hatter. Just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers at the last concert!” The poor Hatter trembled so much 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 more than 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 think I’m a fool? 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, anyway, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on. He looked anxiously round to see if the Dormouse would deny it too. But the Dormouse denied nothing, because he was fast asleep.

“After that,” the Hatter continued, “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,” said the King, “or I’ll have you executed.”

The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and his 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 the officers of the court immediately suppressed him. (This is a rather hard word, so I will explain how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied at the top with strings. They slipped the guinea-pig into it, head first, and then sat on 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 attempt at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court.’ I never understood what it meant until now.”

“If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” the King went on.

“I can’t go any 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 he was suppressed too.

“Well, that finishes 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. The Hatter hurried out of the court without even stopping 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. Alice guessed who it was even before she came into the court, because the people near the door all began sneezing 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 sad look. He folded his arms and frowned at the cook until his eyes were nearly out of sight. Then he said in a deep voice, “What are tarts made of?”

“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook.

“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her.

“Catch that Dormouse!” the Queen shrieked. “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 while they got the Dormouse out. By the time everyone had settled down again, the cook had disappeared.

“Never mind!” said the King, with great relief. “Call the next witness.” And he added quietly to the Queen, “Really, my dear, *you* must cross-examine the next witness. It makes my forehead ache!”

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled with the list. She felt very curious to see what the next witness would be like. “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!”

### Glossary

- **throne**: the special chair of a king or queen
- **scroll of parchment**: a long roll of paper made from animal skin, used for writing
- **jurors**: the people in a court who decide if someone is guilty
- **slates**: small flat boards for writing on with a pencil
- **herald**: an officer who reads out official announcements
- **accusation**: a statement that someone has done something wrong
- **verdict**: the decision of the jury about whether someone is guilty
- **evidence**: facts or words that show what is true
- **suppressed**: stopped by force
- **cross-examine**: to ask a witness hard questions in court
- **treacle**: a thick, sweet, dark syrup

## CHAPTER XII. Alice’s Evidence

“Here!” cried Alice. In the excitement of the moment she quite forgot how large she had grown in the last few minutes. She jumped up in such a hurry that the edge of her skirt tipped over the jury-box. All the jurymen fell onto the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay on the floor, sprawling about. They reminded her very much of a bowl of goldfish that she had accidentally knocked over the week before.

“Oh, I *beg* your pardon!” she cried, in great dismay. She began to pick them up again as quickly as she could. She could not stop thinking about the goldfish, and she had a vague idea that the jurymen must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.

“The trial cannot go on,” said the King in a very serious voice, “until all the jurymen are back in their proper places—*all*,” he repeated, with great force, looking hard at Alice as he said it.

Alice looked at the jury-box. She saw that, in her hurry, she had put the Lizard in head down. The poor little thing was waving its tail about sadly, because it could not move. She soon got it out again and put it the right way up. “Not that it matters much,” she said to herself. “I think it would be *just* as useful in the trial one way up as the other.”

The jury soon recovered a little from the shock of being knocked over. Their slates and pencils were found and handed back to them. Then they set to work very busily to write down the story of the accident. Only the Lizard did not write. He seemed too shocked to do anything except sit with his mouth open, looking up at the roof of the court.

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

“Nothing,” said Alice.

“Nothing *whatever?*” the King asked again.

“Nothing whatever,” said Alice.

“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this on their slates when the White Rabbit interrupted. “*Un*important, your Majesty means, of course,” he said, in a very respectful voice. But he frowned and made faces at the King as he spoke.

“*Un*important, of course, I meant,” the King said quickly. Then he went on, quietly, to himself:

“Important—unimportant—unimportant—important—” It was as if he were trying to find out which word sounded best.

Some of the jury wrote “important,” and some wrote “unimportant.” Alice could see this, because 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 had been busily writing in his note-book for some time. Now he cried out “Silence!” in a cackling voice and read from his book: “Rule Forty-two. *All persons more than a mile high must 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 won’t go, anyway,” said Alice. “Besides, that’s not a proper 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 quickly shut his note-book. “Consider your verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.

“There is more evidence to come, 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 addressed to?” said one of the jurymen.

“It isn’t addressed at all,” said the White Rabbit. “In fact, there’s nothing written on the *outside*.” He unfolded the paper as he spoke and added, “It isn’t a letter, after all. It’s a set of verses.”

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

“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the strangest thing about it.” The jury all looked puzzled.

“He must have copied somebody else’s handwriting,” 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 that I did. There’s no name signed at the end.”

“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes things worse. You *must* have meant to do something bad, or you would have signed your name like an honest man.”

Everyone clapped their hands at this. It was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.

“That *proves* he is guilty,” said the Queen.

“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know what the verses are 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 until you come to the end. Then stop.”

These were the verses that 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, “I’ll give him sixpence.” She had grown so large in the last few minutes that she was not afraid at all of interrupting him. “*I* don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.”

The jury all wrote on their slates, “*She* doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.” But none of them tried to explain the paper.

“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, because we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know.” He spread the verses out on his knee and looked 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. (He certainly did *not*, because he was made entirely of cardboard.)

“All right, so far,” said the King. 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 happily, 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, and she threw an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had stopped writing on his slate with one finger, because he found it left no mark. But now he quickly began again, using the ink that was running down his face, for 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 voice, 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. “What an idea, to have 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 on her. She gave a little scream, half of fear and half of anger, and tried to beat them off. And she found herself lying on the bank, with her head in her sister’s lap. Her sister was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fallen from the trees onto 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. She told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures that you have just been reading about. 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. As she ran, she thought, quite rightly, what a wonderful dream it had been.

But her sister sat still, just as Alice had left her. She leaned her head on her hand and watched the setting sun. She thought of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, until she too began to dream, in a way. This was her dream.

First, she dreamed of little Alice herself. Once again the tiny hands were clasped on her knee, and the bright, eager eyes were looking up into hers. She could hear the very sound of Alice’s voice. She could see that queer little toss of her head, to keep back the wandering hair that *would* always get into her eyes. And as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with 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 pool nearby. She could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal. She could hear the shrill voice of the Queen, ordering her unfortunate guests off 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. With them came the distant sobs of the miserable Mock Turtle.

So she sat on, with her eyes closed, and half believed that she was in Wonderland. But she knew that she had only to open her eyes again, and everything would change to dull reality. The grass would only be rustling in the wind, and the pool would only be rippling as the reeds waved. The rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy. The sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises would change, she knew, to the confused noise of the busy farm-yard. And the cattle, calling in the distance, would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.

Lastly, she pictured how this same little sister of hers would, in the years to come, be a grown woman herself. She would keep, through all her older years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood. She would gather other little children round her and make *their* eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago. She would share all their simple sorrows and find pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own childhood and the happy summer days.

THE END

### Glossary

- **jury-box**: the place in a court where the jury sit
- **jurymen**: the members of a jury, who decide if someone is guilty
- **Lizard**: a small animal with four short legs and a long tail (this is Bill)
- **evidence**: facts or words that show what is true
- **verdict**: the decision of the jury about whether someone is guilty
- **sentence**: the punishment that a judge decides
- **pun**: a joke that uses a word with two meanings
- **fit**: a word with two meanings here: to match or suit someone, and a sudden attack of illness or anger
- **pack of cards**: a full set of playing cards
- **lap**: the flat top of your legs when you sit down