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 did n't , ' said Alice : ' I do n'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 XXXXX the Queen , but she knew that it might happen any minute , ` and then , ' thought she , ` what would become of me ?
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