- May it please your Majesty, - said Two, in a very humble tone,
going down on one knee as he spoke, - we were trying
- I see! - said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
roses. - Off with their heads! - and the procession moved on, three of the
soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to
Alice for protection.
- You shan't be beheaded! - said Alice, and she put them into a large
flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute
or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.
- Are their heads off? - shouted the Queen.
- Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty! - the soldiers
shouted in reply.
- That's right! - shouted the Queen. - Can you play croquet? The
soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently
meant for her.
- Yes! - shouted Alice.
- Come on, then! - roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession,
wondering very much what would happen next.
- It's - it's a very fine day! - said a timid voice at her side. She
was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.
- Very, - said Alice: - where's the Duchess?
- Hush! Hush! - said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked
anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon
tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered - She's under
sentence of execution.
- What for? - said Alice.
- Did you say - What a pity! - ? - the Rabbit asked.
- No, I didn't, - said Alice: - I don't think it's at all a pity. I
said - What for?
- She boxed the Queen's ears - the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little
scream of laughter. - Oh, hush! - the Rabbit whispered in a frightened
tone. - The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the
Queen said
- Get to your places! - shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and
people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each
other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game
began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in
her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs,
the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up
and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably
enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as
she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the
hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in
her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting
out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin
again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was
generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the
hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and
walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the
conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.
The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling
all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time
the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting
- Off with his head! - or - Off with her head! about once in a minute.
Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had
any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute,
- and then, - thought she, - what would become of me? They're dreadfully
fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one
left alive!
She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether
she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious
appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after
watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to
herself - It's the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.
- How are you getting on? - said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth
enough for it to speak with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. - It's no use
speaking to it, - she thought, - till its ears have come, or at least one
of them. - In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put
down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she
had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was
enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.
- I don't think they play at all fairly, - Alice began, in rather a
complaining tone, - and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear
oneself speak - and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at
least, if there are, nobody attends to them - and you've no idea how
confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there's the arch
I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground -
and I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran
away when it saw mine coming?
- How do you like the Queen? - said the Cat in a low voice.
- Not at all, - said Alice: - she's so extremely - Just then she
noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, -
likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.
The Queen smiled and passed on. - Who ARE you talking to? - said the
King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat's head with great
curiosity.
- It's a friend of mine - a Cheshire Cat, - said Alice: - allow me to
introduce it.
- I don't like the look of it at all, - said the King: - however, it
may kiss my hand if it likes.
- I'd rather not, - the Cat remarked.
- Don't be impertinent, - said the King, - and don't look at me like
that! - He got behind Alice as he spoke.
- A cat may look at a king, - said Alice. - I've read that in some
book, but I don't remember where.
- Well, it must be removed, - said the King very decidedly, and he
called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, - My dear! I wish you
would have this cat removed!
The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or
small. - Off with his head! - she said, without even looking round.
- I'll fetch the executioner myself, - said the King eagerly, and he
hurried off.
Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was
going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with
passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be
executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of
things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew
whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.
The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which
seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with
the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to
the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a
helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.
By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the
fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: - but it doesn't
matter much, - thought Alice, - as all the arches are gone from the side
of the ground. - So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not
escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her
friend.
When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find
quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on
between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at
once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.
The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle
the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they
all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what
they said.
The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head
unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do
such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at HIS time of life.
The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.
The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in
less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this
last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)
Alice could think of nothing else to say but - It belongs to the
Duchess: you'd better ask HER about it.
- She's in prison, - the Queen said to the executioner: - fetch her
here. - And the executioner went off like an arrow.
The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the
time he had disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and
down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.



CHAPTER IX

The Mock Turtle's Story

- You can't think you glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!
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