and there he lay, opening and shutting
his mouth and his large eyes - 'looking more like a fish than anything
else, - Alice thought.
- Of course you agree to have a battle? - Tweedledum said in a calmer
tone.
- I suppose so, - the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the
umbrella: - only SHE must help us to dress up, you know.
So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned
in a minute with their arms full of things - such as bolsters, blankets,
hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. - I hope you're
a good hand a pinning and tying strings? - Tweedledum remarked. - Every
one of these things has got to go on, somehow or other.
Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about
anything in all her life - the way those two bustled about -and the
quantity of things they put on - and the trouble they gave her in tying
strings and fastening buttons - Really they'll be more like bundles of old
clothes that anything else, by the time they're ready! - she said to
herself, as he arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, - to keep
his head from being cut off, - as he said.
- You know, - he added very gravely, - it's one of the most serious
things that can possibly happen to one in a battle - to get one's head cut
off.
Alice laughed loud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear
of hurting his feelings.
- Do I look very pale? - said Tweedledum, coming up to have his
helmet tied on. (He CALLED it a helmet, though it certainly looked much
more like a saucepan.)
- Well - yes - a LITTLE, - Alice replied gently.
- I'm very brave generally, - he went on in a low voice: - only
to-day I happen to have a headache.
- And I'VE got a toothache! - said Tweedledee, who had overheard the
remark. - I'm far worse off than you!
- Then you'd better not fight to-day, - said Alice, thinking it a
good opportunity to make peace.
- We MUST have a bit of a fight, but I don't care about going on
long, - said Tweedledum. - What's the time now?
Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said - Half-past four. - Let's
fight till six, and then have dinner, - said Tweedledum. - Very well, -
the other said, rather sadly: - and SHE can watch us
only you'd better not come VERY close, - he added: - I generally hit
everything I can see - when I get really excited.
- And _I_ hit everything within reach, - cried Tweedledum, - whether
I can see it or not!
Alice laughed. - You must hit the TREES pretty often, I should think,
- she said.
Tweedledum looked round him with a satisfied smile. I don't suppose,
- he said, - there'll be a tree left standing, for ever so far round, by
the time we've finished!
- And all about a rattle! - said Alice, still hoping to make them a
LITTLE ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.
- I shouldn't have minded it so much, - said Tweedledum, - if it
hadn't been a new one.
- I wish the monstrous crow would come! - though Alice.
- There's only one sword, you know, - Tweedledum said to his brother:
- but you can have the umbrella - it's quite as sharp. Only we must begin
quick. It's getting as dark as it can.
- And darker. - said Tweedledee. It was getting dark so suddenly that
Alice thought there must be a
thunderstorm coming on. - What a thick black cloud that is! - she said. -
And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it's got wings!
- It's the crow! - Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm:
and the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a
moment.
Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree.
- It can never get at me HERE, - she thought: - it's far too large to
squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn't flap its wings
so - it make quite a hurricane in the wood - here's somebody's shawl being
blown away!



CHAPTER V

Wool and Water

She caught the shawl as she spoke, and looked about for the owner: in
another moment the White Queen came running wildly through the wood, with
both arms stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and Alice very
civilly went to meet her with the shawl.
- I'm very glad I happened to be in the way, - Alice said, as she
helped her to put on her shawl again.
The While Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of
way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded
like - bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter, - and Alice felt that if there
was to be any conversation at all, she must manage it herself. So she
began rather timidly: - Am I addressing the White Queen?
- Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing, - The Queen said. - It
isn't MY notion of the thing, at all."
Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very
beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said, - If your Majesty
will only tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I can.
- But I don't want it done at all! - groaned the poor Queen. - I've
been a-dressing myself for the last two hours.
It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had
got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. - Every
single thing's crooked, - Alice thought to herself, - and she's all over
pins! - may I put your shawl straight for you? - she added aloud.
- I don't know what's the matter with it! - the Queen said, in a
melancholy voice. - It's out of temper, I think. I've pinned it here, and
I've pinned it there, but there's no pleasing it!
- It CAN'T go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one side,
Alice said, as she gently put it right for her; - and, dear me, what a
state your hair is in!
- The brush has got entangled in it! - the Queen said with a sigh. -
And I lost the comb yesterday.
Alice carefully released the brush, and did her best to get the hair
into order. - Come, you look rather better now! - she said, after altering
most of the pins. - But really you should have a lady's maid!
- I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure! - the Queen said. - Twopence
a week, and jam every other day.
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, - I don't want you to hire
ME - and I don't care for jam.
- It's very good jam, - said the Queen.
- Well, I don't want any TO-DAY, at any rate.
- You couldn't have it if you DID want it, - the Queen said. - The
rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.
- It MUST come sometimes to "jam do-day," - Alice objected.
- No, it can't, - said the Queen. - It's jam every OTHER day: to-day
isn't any OTHER day, you know.
- I don't understand you, - said Alice. - It's dreadfully confusing!
- That's the effect of living backwards, - the Queen said kindly: -
it always makes one a little giddy at first
- Living backwards! - Alice repeated in great astonishment. - I never
heard of such a thing!
- but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both
ways.
- I'm sure MINE only works one way. - Alice remarked. - I can't
remember things before they happen.
- It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards, - the Queen
remarked.
- What sort of things do YOU remember best? - Alice ventured to ask.
- Oh, things that happened the week after next, - the Queen replied
in a careless tone. - For instance, now, - she went on, sticking a large
piece of plaster [band-aid] on her finger as she spoke, - there's the
King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial
doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last
of all.
- Suppose he never commits the crime? - said Alice.
- That would be all the better wouldn't it? - the Queen said, as she
bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon.
Alice felt there was no denying THAT. - Of course it would be all the
better, - she said: - but it wouldn't be all the better his being
punished.
- You're wrong THERE, at any rate, - said the Queen: - were YOU ever
punished?
- Only for faults, - said Alice.
- And you were all the better for it, I know! - the Queen said
triumphantly.
- Yes, but then I HAD done the things I was punished for, - said
Alice: - that makes all the difference.
- But if you HADN'T done them, - the Queen said, - that would have
been better still; better, and better, and better! - Her voice went higher
with each - better, - till it got quite to a squeak at last.
Alice was just beginning to say - There's a mistake somewhere-, - **
when the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence
unfinished. - Oh, oh, oh! - shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as
if she wanted to shake it off. - My finger's bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that
Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.
- What IS the matter? - she said, as soon as there was a chance of
making herself heard. - Have you pricked your finger?
- I haven't pricked it YET, - the Queen said, - but I soon shall oh,
oh, oh!
- When do you expect to do it?
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