Page:Alice's adventures in Wonderland - (IA alicesadventures00carr 21).djvu/105

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ALICE ON THE STAND.
95

"My no-tion was, she liked him best,
(Be-fore she had this fit)
This must be kept from all the rest
But him and you and it."

"That's the best thing we've heard yet," said the King, rub-bing his hands as if much pleased; "so now let the ju-ry——"

"If one of you can tell what it means," said Al-ice (she had grown so large by this time that she had no fear of the King) "I should be glad to hear it. I don't think there's a grain of sense in it."

The ju-ry all wrote down on their slates, "She doesn't think there's a grain of sense in it." But no one tried to tell what it meant.

"If there's no sense in it," said the King, "that saves a world of work, you know, as we needn't try to find it. And yet I don't know," he went on, as he spread out the rhymes on his knee, and looked at them with one eye: "I seem to find some sense in them—'said I could not swim'—you can't swim, can you?" he added, turn-ing to the Knave.

The Knave shook his head with a sigh. "Do I look like it?" he said. (Which it was plain he did not, as he was made of card board.)

"All right, so far," said the King, and he went on: "'We know it to be true'—that's the ju-ry, of course—'I gave her one, they gave him two'—that must be what he did with the tarts, you know——"