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.
The Mock Turtle’s
Story
`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—’
