Through the Looking-Glass
“The prettiest are always further!” she said at last, with a sigh at
the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed
cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place,
and began to arrange her new-found treasures.
What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade,
and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she
picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very
little while—and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like
snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet—but Alice hardly noticed this,
there were so many other curious things to think about.
They hadn’t gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars got
fast in the water and _wouldn’t_ come out again (so Alice explained it
afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle of it caught her
under the chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks of “Oh, oh,
oh!” from poor Alice, it swept her straight off the seat, and down
among the heap of rushes.
However, she wasn’t hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep went on with
her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had happened. “That was
a nice crab you caught!” she remarked, as Alice got back into her
place, very much relieved to find herself still in the boat.
“Was it? I didn’t see it,” Said Alice, peeping cautiously over the side
of the boat into the dark water. “I wish it hadn’t let go—I should so
like to see a little crab to take home with me!” But the Sheep only
laughed scornfully, and went on with her knitting.
“Are there many crabs here?” said Alice.
“Crabs, and all sorts of things,” said the Sheep: “plenty of choice,
only make up your mind. Now, what _do_ you want to buy?”
“To buy!” Alice echoed in a tone that was half astonished and half
frightened—for the oars, and the boat, and the river, had vanished all
in a moment, and she was back again in the little dark shop.
“I should like to buy an egg, please,” she said timidly. “How do you
sell them?”
“Fivepence farthing for one—Twopence for two,” the Sheep replied.
“Then two are cheaper than one?” Alice said in a surprised tone, taking
out her purse.
“Only you _must_ eat them both, if you buy two,” said the Sheep.
“Then I’ll have _one_, please,” said Alice, as she put the money down
on the counter. For she thought to herself, “They mightn’t be at all
nice, you know.”
The Sheep took the money, and put it away in a box: then she said “I
never put things into people’s hands—that would never do—you must get
it for yourself.” And so saying, she went off to the other end of the
shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf.
“I wonder _why_ it wouldn’t do?” thought Alice, as she groped her way
among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards the
end. “The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let
me see, is this a chair? Why, it’s got branches, I declare! How very
odd to find trees growing here! And actually here’s a little brook!
Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!”
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * *
So she went on, wondering more and more at every step, as everything
turned into a tree the moment she came up to it, and she quite expected
the egg to do the same.
CHAPTER VI.
Humpty Dumpty
However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human:
when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes
and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw
clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. “It can’t be anybody else!”
she said to herself. “I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written
all over his face.”
It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous
face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on
the top of a high wall—such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how
he could keep his balance—and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the
opposite direction, and he didn’t take the least notice of her, she
thought he must be a stuffed figure after all.
“And how exactly like an egg he is!” she said aloud, standing with her
hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to
fall.
“It’s _very_ provoking,” Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence,
looking away from Alice as he spoke, “to be called an egg—_Very!_”
“I said you _looked_ like an egg, Sir,” Alice gently explained. “And
some eggs are very pretty, you know” she added, hoping to turn her
remark into a sort of a compliment.
“Some people,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual,
“have no more sense than a baby!”
Alice didn’t know what to say to this: it wasn’t at all like
conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to _her_; in fact,
his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree—so she stood and
softly repeated to herself:—
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.”
“That last line is much too long for the poetry,” she added, almost out
loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her.
“Don’t stand there chattering to yourself like that,” Humpty Dumpty
said, looking at her for the first time, “but tell me your name and
your business.”
“My _name_ is Alice, but—”
“It’s a stupid enough name!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently.
“What does it mean?”
“_Must_ a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully.
“Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “_my_ name
means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name
like yours, you might be any shape, almost.”
“Why do you sit out here all alone?” said Alice, not wishing to begin
an argument.
“Why, because there’s nobody with me!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “Did you
think I didn’t know the answer to _that_? Ask another.”
“Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground?” Alice went on, not
with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured
anxiety for the queer creature. “That wall is so _very_ narrow!”
“What tremendously easy riddles you ask!” Humpty Dumpty growled out.
“Of course I don’t think so! Why, if ever I _did_ fall off—which
there’s no chance of—but _if_ I did—” Here he pursed his lips and
looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. “_If_
I did fall,” he went on, “_The King has promised me—with his very own
mouth_—to—to—”
“To send all his horses and all his men,” Alice interrupted, rather
unwisely.
“Now I declare that’s too bad!” Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a
sudden passion. “You’ve been listening at doors—and behind trees—and
down chimneys—or you couldn’t have known it!”
“I haven’t, indeed!” Alice said very gently. “It’s in a book.”
“Ah, well! They may write such things in a _book_,” Humpty Dumpty said
in a calmer tone. “That’s what you call a History of England, that is.
Now, take a good look at me! I’m one that has spoken to a King, _I_ am:
mayhap you’ll never see such another: and to show you I’m not proud,
you may shake hands with me!” And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as
he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing
so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched him a little anxiously as
she took it. “If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet
behind,” she thought: “and then I don’t know what would happen to his
head! I’m afraid it would come off!”
“Yes, all his horses and all his men,” Humpty Dumpty went on. “They’d
pick me up again in a minute, _they_ would! However, this conversation
is going on a little too fast: let’s go back to the last remark but
one.”
“I’m afraid I can’t quite remember it,” Alice said very politely.
“In that case we start fresh,” said Humpty Dumpty, “and it’s my turn to
choose a subject—” (“He talks about it just as if it was a game!”
thought Alice.) “So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you
were?”
Alice made a short calculation, and said “Seven years and six months.”
“Wrong!” Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. “You never said a word
like it!”
“I though you meant ‘How old _are_ you?’” Alice explained.
“If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,” said Humpty Dumpty.
Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, so she said nothing.
“Seven years and six months!” Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. “An
uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked _my_ advice, I’d have
said ‘Leave off at seven’—but it’s too late now.”
“I never ask advice about growing,” Alice said indignantly.
“Too proud?” the other inquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. “I mean,” she said,
“that one can’t help growing older.”
“_One_ can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty Dumpty, “but _two_ can. With proper
assistance, you might have left off at seven.”
“What a beautiful belt you’ve got on!” Alice suddenly remarked.
(They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and if
they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her turn
now.) “At least,” she corrected herself on second thoughts, “a
beautiful cravat, I should have said—no, a belt, I mean—I beg your
pardon!” she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly
offended, and she began to wish she hadn’t chosen that subject. “If I
only knew,” she thought to herself, “which was neck and which was
waist!”
Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, though he said nothing for a
minute or two. When he _did_ speak again, it was in a deep growl.
“It is a—_most—provoking_—thing,” he said at last, “when a person
doesn’t know a cravat from a belt!”
“I know it’s very ignorant of me,” Alice said, in so humble a tone that
Humpty Dumpty relented.
“It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It’s a present
from the White King and Queen. There now!”
“Is it really?” said Alice, quite pleased to find that she _had_ chosen
a good subject, after all.
“They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed
one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, “they gave it
me—for an un-birthday present.”
“I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air.
“I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty.
“I mean, what _is_ an un-birthday present?”
“A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.”
Alice considered a little. “I like birthday presents best,” she said at
last.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “How
many days are there in a year?”
“Three hundred and sixty-five,” said Alice.
“And how many birthdays have you?”
“One.”
“And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?”
“Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.”
Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. “I’d rather see that done on paper,” he
said.
Alice couldn’t help smiling as she took out her memorandum-book, and
worked the sum for him:
365
1
____
364
___
Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked at it carefully. “That seems to
be done right—” he began.
“You’re holding it upside down!” Alice interrupted.
“To be sure I was!” Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round
for him. “I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that
_seems_ to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over
thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and
sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—”
“Certainly,” said Alice.
“And only _one_ for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for
you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell
you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”