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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

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