“I’m not a serpent!” said Alice indignantly.

“Let me alone!”


“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued

tone, and added with a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and

nothing seems to suit them!”


“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,”

said Alice.


“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and

I’ve tried hedges,” the Pigeon went on, without attending to her;

“but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!”


Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying

anything more till the Pigeon had finished.


“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the

Pigeon; “but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I

haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!”


“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said Alice, who

was beginning to see its meaning.


“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,”

continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was

thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down

from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!”


“But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice.

“I’m a—I’m a—”


“Well! What are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see

you’re trying to invent something!”


“I—I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubtfully,

as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.


“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest

contempt. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never

one with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and

there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that

you never tasted an egg!”


“I have tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who was a very

truthful child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do,

you know.”


“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but if they do,

why then they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.”