Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 12: Which Dreamed it?

`Your majesty shouldn't purr so loud,' Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. `You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you've been along with me, Kitty--all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?'

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they ALWAYS purr. `If them would only purr for "yes" and mew for "no," or any rule of that sort,' she had said, `so that one could keep up a conversation! But how CAN you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?'

On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess whether it meant `yes' or `no.'

So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. `Now, Kitty!' she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. `Confess that was what you turned into!'

(`But it wouldn't look at it,' she said, when she was explaining the thing afterwards to her sister: `it turned away its head, and pretended not to see it: but it looked a LITTLE ashamed of itself, so I think it MUST have been the Red Queen.')

`Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!' Alice cried with a merry laugh. `And curtsey while you're thinking what to--what to purr. It saves time, remember!' And she caught it up and gave it one little kiss, `just in honour of having been a Red Queen.'

`Snowdrop, my pet!' she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, `when WILL Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason you were so untidy in my dream-- Dinah! do you know that you're scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it's most disrespectful of you!