Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 6: Humpty Dumpty (continued)

`I shouldn't know you again if we DID meet,' Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; `you're so exactly like other people.'

`The face is what one goes by, generally,' Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.

`That's just what I complain of,' said Humpty Dumpty. `Your face is the same as everybody has--the two eyes, so--' (marking their places in the air with this thumb) `nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance--or the mouth at the top--that would be SOME help.'

`It wouldn't look nice,' Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said `Wait till you've tried.'

Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said `Good-bye!' once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but she couldn't help saying to herself as she went, `Of all the unsatisfactory--' (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a long word to say) `of all the unsatisfactory people I EVER met--' She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.