Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Page 8

  ‘Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,’ said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

  ‘It must be a very pretty dance,’ said Alice timidly.

  ‘Would you like to see a little of it?’ said the Mock Turtle.

  ‘Very much indeed,’ said Alice.

  ‘Come, let’s try the first figure!’ said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. ‘We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?’

  ‘Oh, you sing,’ said the Gryphon. Tve forgotten the words.’

  So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly:

  ‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail.

  ‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

  See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

  They are waiting on the shingle – will you come and join the dance?

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

  ‘You can really have no notion how delightful it will be

  When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!’

  But the snail replied ‘Too far, too far!’ and gave a look askance –

  Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

  Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

  Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

  ‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied.

  ‘There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

  The further off from England the nearer is to France –

  Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?’

  ‘Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,’ said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: ‘and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!’

  ‘Oh, as to the whiting,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘they – you’ve seen them, of course?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘I’ve often seen them at dinn –’ she checked herself hastily.

  ‘I don’t know where Dinn may be,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘but if you’ve seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.’

  ‘I believe so,’ Alice replied thoughtfully. ‘They have their tails in their mouths – and they’re all over crumbs.’

  ‘You’re wrong about the crumbs,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they have their tails in their mouths; and the reason is –’ here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes. ‘Tell her about the reason and all that,’ he said to the Gryphon.

  ‘The reason is,’ said the Gryphon, ‘that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alice, ‘it’s very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.’

  ‘I can tell you more than that, if you like,’ said the Gryphon. ‘Do you know why it’s called a whiting?’

  ‘I never thought about it,’ said Alice. ‘Why?’

  ‘It does the boots and shoes,’ the Gryphon replied very solemnly.

  Alice was thoroughly puzzled. ‘Does the boots and shoes!’ she repeated in a wondering tone.

  ‘Why, what are your shoes done with?’ said the Gryphon. ‘I mean what makes them so shiny?’

  Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. ‘They’re done with blacking, I believe.’

  ‘Boots and shoes under the sea,’ the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, ‘are done with whiting. Now you know.’

  ‘And what are they made of?’ Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

  ‘Soles and eels, of course,’ the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: ‘any shrimp could have told you that.’

  ‘If I’d been the whiting,’ said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, ‘I’d have said to the porpoise, “Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!” ’

  ‘They were obliged to have him with them,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it really?’ said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

  ‘Of course not,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say “With what porpoise?” ’

  ‘Don’t you mean “purpose”?’ said Alice.

  ‘I mean what I say,’ the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added ‘Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.’

  ‘I could tell you my adventures – beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

  ‘Explain all that,’ said the Mock Turtle.

  ‘No, no! The adventures first,’ said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: ‘explanations take such a dreadful time.’

  So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating ‘You are old, Father William,’ to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said ‘That’s very curious.’

  ‘It’s all about as curious as it can be,’ said the Gryphon.

  ‘It all came different!’ the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. ‘I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.’ He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

  ‘Stand up and repeat “‘Tis the voice of the sluggard” ’ said the Gryphon.

  ‘How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!’ thought Alice; ‘I might as well be at school at once.’ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:

  “Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,

   “You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

   As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

   Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.’

  ‘That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,’ said the Gryphon.

  ‘Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Mock Turtle; ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’

  Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.

  ‘I should like to have it explained,’ said the Mock Turtle.

  ‘She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on with the next verse.’

  ‘But about his toes?’ the Mock Turtle persisted. ‘How could he turn them out with his nose, you know?’

  ‘It’s the first position in dancing,’ Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject.

  ‘Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated impatiently: ‘it begins “I passed by his garden.” ’

  Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:
/>
  ‘I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

   How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie –’

  ‘What is the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Mock Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’

  ‘Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so.

  ‘Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?’ the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?’

  ‘Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her “Turtle Soup,” will you, old fellow?’

  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:

  ‘Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

  Waiting in a hot tureen!

  Who for such dainties would not stoop?

  Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

  Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

   Beau – ootiful Soo – oop!

   Beau – ootiful Soo – oop!

  Soo – oop of the e – e – evening,

   Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

  ‘Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

  Game, or any other dish?

  Who would not give all else for two p

  ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

  Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

   Beau – ootiful Soo – oop!

   Beau – ootiful Soo – oop!

  Soo – oop of the e – e – evening,

   Beautiful, beauti – FUL SOUP!’

  ‘Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of ‘The trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.

  ‘Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

  ‘What trial is it?’ Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered ‘Come on!’ and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:

  ‘Soo – oop of the e – e – evening,

  Beautiful, beautiful Soup!’

  11

  Who Stole the Tarts?

  The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them – all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them – ‘I wish they’d get the trial done,’ she thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’ But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time.

  Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. ‘That’s the judge,’ she said to herself, ‘because of his great wig.’

  The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.

  ‘And that’s the jury-box,’ thought Alice, ‘and those twelve creatures,’ (she was obliged to say ‘creatures,’ you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) ‘I suppose they are the jurors.’ She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, ‘jury-men’ would have done just as well.

  The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. ‘What are they doing?’ Alice whispered to the Gryphon. ‘They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.’

  ‘They’re putting down their names,’ the Gryphon whispered in reply, ‘for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.’

  ‘Stupid things!’ Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, ‘Silence in the court!’ and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

  Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down ‘stupid things!’ on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell ’stupid,’ and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. ‘A nice muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!’ thought Alice.

  One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This, of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate.

  ‘Herald, read the accusation!’ said the King.

  On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:

  ‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

   All on a summer day:

  The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

   And took them quite away!’

  ‘Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.

  ‘Not yet, not yet!’ the Rabbit hastily interrupted. ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’

  ‘Call the first witness,’ said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, ‘First witness!’

  The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. ‘I beg pardon, your Majesty,’ he began, ‘for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.’

  ‘You ought to have finished,’ said the King. ‘When did you begin?’

  The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. ‘Fourteenth of March, I think it was,’ he said.

  ‘Fifteenth,’ said the March Hare.

  ‘Sixteenth,’ added the Dormouse.

  ‘Write that down,’ the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

  ‘Take off your hat,’ the King said to the Hatter.

  ‘It isn’t mine,’ said the Hatter.

  ‘Stolen!’ the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

  ‘I keep them to sell,’ the Hatter added as an explanation: ‘I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.’

  Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.

  ‘Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’

  This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

  Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,’ said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. ‘I can hardly breathe.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m
growing.’

  ‘You’ve no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Alice more boldly: ‘you know you’re growing too.’

  ‘Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,’ said the Dormouse: ‘not in that ridiculous fashion.’ And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court.

  All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, ‘Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!’ on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

  ‘Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.’

  ‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, ‘– and I hadn’t begun my tea – not above a week or so – and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin – and the twinkling of the tea –’

  ‘The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.

  ‘It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.

  ‘Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’

  ‘I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things twinkled after that – only the March Hare said –’

  ‘I didn’t!’ the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

  ‘You did!’ said the Hatter.

  ‘I deny it!’ said the March Hare.

  ‘He denies it,’ said the King: ‘leave out that part.’

  ‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said –’ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.

  ‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread-and-butter –’

  ‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.

  ‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.

  ‘You must remember,’ remarked the King, ‘or I’ll have you executed.’

  The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. ‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ he began.