`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
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
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
Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the Duchess: you'd better ask her about it.'
`She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: `fetch her here.' And the executioner went off like an arrow.
The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Dutchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.
`Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.
`Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. `Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke.
Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was
They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (
The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight: then it chuckled. `What fun!' said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.
`What is the fun?' said Alice.