Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 9: Queen Alice (continued)

`Ninety times nine!' Alice repeated in despair, `Oh, that'll never be done! I'd better go in at once--' and there was a dead silence the moment she appeared.

Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among them. `I'm glad they've come without waiting to be asked,' she thought: `I should never have known who were the right people to invite!'

There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White Queens had already taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. Alice sat down in it, rather uncomfortable in the silence, and longing for some one to speak.

At last the Red Queen began. `You've missed the soup and fish,' she said. `Put on the joint!' And the waiters set a leg of mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve a joint before.

`You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,' said the Red Queen. `Alice--Mutton; Mutton--Alice.' The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.

`May I give you a slice?' she said, taking up the knife and fork, and looking from one Queen to the other.

`Certainly not,' the Red Queen said, very decidedly: `it isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!' And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.

`I won't be introduced to the pudding, please,' Alice said rather hastily, `or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?'

But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled `Pudding--Alice; Alice--Pudding. Remove the pudding!' and the waiters took it away so quickly that Alice couldn't return its bow.