Chapter: There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the
March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting
between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a
cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 'Very
uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I
suppose it doesn't mind.'

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at
one corner of it: 'No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice
coming. 'There's PLENTY of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat
down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.
'I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.

'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said
the March Hare.

'I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; 'it's laid for a great
many more than three.'

'Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice
for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some
severity; 'it's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID
was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've
begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

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

'Exactly so,' said Alice.

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

'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least--at least I mean what I
say--that's the same thing, you know.'

'Not the same thing a bit!' 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 with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice
thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks,
which wasn't much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. '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 uneasily, shaking it every now and then,
and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said 'The fourth.'

'Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter. 'I told you butter wouldn't suit
the works!' he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

'It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.

'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 gloomily: then he dipped
it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of
nothing better to say than his first remark, 'It was the BEST butter,
you know.'

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. 'What a
funny watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't
tell what o'clock it is!'

'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does YOUR watch tell you what
year it is?'

'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it
stays the same year for such a long time together.'

'Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no
sort of meaning in it, 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 upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its
eyes, 'Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.'

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

'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.

'Nor I,' said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the
time,' she said, 'than waste it in 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 contemptuously.
'I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'

'Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: 'but I know I have to beat time
when I learn music.'

'Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. 'He won't stand beating.
Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything
you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in
the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a
hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one,
time for dinner!'

('I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

'That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully: 'but then--I
shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'

'Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: 'but you could keep it to
half-past one as long as you liked.'

'Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 'Not I!' he replied. 'We
quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--' (pointing
with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) '--it was at the great concert
given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

     "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, you know,' the Hatter continued, 'in this way:--

     "Up above the world you fly,
     Like a tea-tray in the sky.
         Twinkle, twinkle--"'

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep 'Twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that they had to pinch
it to make it stop.

'Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, 'when the
Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his
head!"'

'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.

'And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, 'he won't
do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'

A bright idea came into Alice's head. 'Is that the reason so many
tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

'Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: 'it's always tea-time,
and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

'Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

'Exactly so,' said the Hatter: 'as the things get used up.'

'But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured
to ask.

'Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning.
'I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.'

'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at the
proposal.

'Then the Dormouse shall!' 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, feeble voice: 'I heard every word you fellows were saying.'

'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.

'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, 'or you'll be asleep again
before it's done.'

'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began
in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and
they lived at the bottom of a well--'

'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in
questions of eating and drinking.

'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or
two.

'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; 'they'd
have been ill.'

'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'VERY ill.'

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways 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 earnestly.

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, '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's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself
to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and
repeated her question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then
said, 'It was a treacle-well.'

'There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very angrily, but the
Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse sulkily
remarked, 'If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for
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 indignantly. However, he consented to
go on. 'And so these three little sisters--they were learning to draw,
you know--'

'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place
on.'

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare
moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took
the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any
advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than
before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very
cautiously: '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, not choosing to
notice this last remark.

'Of course they were', said the Dormouse; '--well in.'

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

'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing
its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew all manner 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 into
a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, 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 such a thing as a
drawing of a muchness?'

'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't
think--'

'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in
great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and
neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though 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'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she picked her
way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all
my life!'

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door
leading right into it. 'That's very curious!' she thought. 'But
everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.' And in
she went.

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




A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses
growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily
painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went
nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of
them say, 'Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like
that!'

'I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; 'Seven jogged my
elbow.'

On which Seven looked up and said, 'That's right, Five! Always lay the
blame on others!'

'YOU'D better not talk!' said Five. 'I heard the Queen say only
yesterday 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 flung down his brush, and had just begun 'Well, of all the unjust
things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching
them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and
all of them bowed low.

'Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, 'why you are painting
those roses?'

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low
voice, 'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a
RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen
was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.
So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to--' At this
moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called
out 'The Queen! The Queen!' and the three gardeners instantly threw
themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps,
and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like
the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the
corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with
diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came
the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came
jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented
with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among
them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried
nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's
crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand
procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face
like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard
of such a rule at processions; 'and besides, what would be the use of
a procession,' thought she, 'if people had all to lie down upon their
faces, so that they couldn't see it?' So she stood still where she was,
and waited.

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked
at her, and the Queen said severely 'Who is this?' She said it to the
Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

'Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to
Alice, she went on, 'What's your name, child?'

'My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very politely;
but she added, to herself, 'Why, they're only a pack of cards, after
all. I needn't be afraid of them!'

'And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who
were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their
faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the
pack, 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 crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a
moment like a wild beast, screamed 'Off with her head! Off--'

'Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was
silent.

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said '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 shrill, loud voice, and the three
gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen,
the royal children, and everybody else.

'Leave off that!' screamed the Queen. 'You make me giddy.' And then,
turning to the rose-tree, she went on, 'What HAVE you been doing here?'

'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 this 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 come back with the Duchess, 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.




'You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!'
said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's, and
they walked off together.

Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought
to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so
savage when they met in the kitchen.

'When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone
though), 'I won't have any pepper in my kitchen AT ALL. Soup does very
well without--Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,'
she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of
rule, 'and vinegar that makes them sour--and camomile that makes
them bitter--and--and barley-sugar and such things that make children
sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that: then they wouldn't be so
stingy about it, you know--'

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and 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 just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in
a bit.'

'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 VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the
right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an
uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she
bore it as well as she could.

'The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of keeping up
the conversation a little.

''Tis so,' said the Duchess: 'and the moral of that is--"Oh, 'tis love,
'tis 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, digging 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."'

'How fond she is of 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 doubtful about
the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?'

'HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious to
have the experiment tried.

'Very true,' said the Duchess: 'flamingoes and mustard both bite. And
the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock together."'

'Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.

'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, who seemed ready to agree to
everything that Alice said; 'there's 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!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended 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'd 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 should understand that better,' Alice said very politely, 'if
I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.'

'That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess replied, in
a pleased tone.

'Pray 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've said as yet.'

'A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they don't give
birthday presents like that!' But she did not venture to say it out
loud.

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

'I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for 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 here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died away, even
in the middle of her favourite word 'moral,' and the arm that was linked
into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen
in front of them, with her arms folded, 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 took her choice, and was gone in a moment.

'Let's go on with the game,' the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was
too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the
croquet-ground.

The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence, and were
resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried
back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment's delay would
cost them their lives.

All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with
the other players, and shouting 'Off with his head!' or 'Off with her
head!' Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers,
who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by
the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the
players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and
under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, 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 shall tell you his history,'

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice,
to the company generally, 'You are all pardoned.' 'Come, THAT'S a good
thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the
number of executions the Queen had ordered.

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun.
(IF you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) 'Up, lazy
thing!' said the Queen, 'and take this young lady to see the Mock
Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some
executions I have ordered'; and she walked off, leaving Alice alone with
the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on
the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it as to go
after that savage Queen: so she waited.

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.

'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 never was so ordered about in all my life, never!'

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance,
sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came
nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She
pitied him deeply. 'What is his sorrow?' she asked the Gryphon, and the
Gryphon answered, very nearly in 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, who looked at them with large eyes
full of tears, but 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 tone: 'sit
down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've finished.'

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to
herself, 'I don't see how he can EVEN 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, broken only by an
occasional exclamation of 'Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and the constant
heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and
saying, 'Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,' but she could
not help thinking 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 still sobbing 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; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor
Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said
to the Mock Turtle, 'Drive on, old fellow! Don't be all day about it!'
and he went on in these words:

'Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe it--'

'I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.

'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'VE 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 indignantly.

'Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock Turtle in
a tone of great relief. 'Now at OURS they had at the end of the bill,
"French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'

'You couldn't have wanted 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?' inquired Alice.

'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle
replied; 'and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition,
Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'

'I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. 'What is it?'

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. 'What! Never heard of
uglifying!' it exclaimed. '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 encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she
turned to the Mock Turtle, and said 'What else had you to learn?'

'Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting off
the subjects on his flappers, '--Mystery, ancient and modern, with
Seaography: then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel,
that used to come once a week: HE taught us Drawling, Stretching, and
Fainting in Coils.'

'What was THAT like?' said Alice.

'Well, I can't show it 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; and both
creatures hid their faces in their paws.

'And how many hours a day did you do 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 curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.

'That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked:
'because they lessen from day to day.'

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little
before she made her next remark. '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 interrupted in a very decided
tone: 'tell her something about the games now.'

 Alice finds the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse sitting all together at one end of a large table. The Dormouse sits between the other two, fast asleep. They are disagreeable from the start, and Alice's conversation with them is confusing even by Wonderland standards. They contradict Alice at every turn, correcting her with confusing arguments that have their own strange logic. Much of the conversation is about time. The Hatter's watch, which only tells the day of the month, is broken. The Hatter also tells Alice that Time stopped working for him about a month ago, when the Queen of Hearts accused the Hatter of murdering the time. Since then, it's always been six o'clock, which is why they sit at tea all the time. All the places at the table are set, because they don't have time to do the dishes. When they want a clean plate, they just move to another spot. The Dormouse begins to tell a strange story about three sisters who live in a well; Alice's questions and contradictions anger the Dormouse, and the Hatter and March Hare grow increasingly rude to her. Finally, Alice leaves, disgusted, turning around as she goes to see the Hatter and the Hare trying to stuff the Dormouse into a pot of tea. Alice wanders in the woods until she finds a tree with a door in it. She goes inside, and finds herself in the long hallway again. This time, she's prepared: she takes the key from the table and unlocks the door to the garden. She then eats just enough mushroom to step through the door, and she finds herself in the lovely garden.

