Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 5: Wool and Water (continued)

`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 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.