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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll


63

CHAPTER XII

ALICE’S EVIDENCE.

“HERE!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment
how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped
up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge
of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd
below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very
much of a globe of gold-fish she had accidentally upset the week
before.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay,
and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the
accident of the gold-fish kept running in her head, and she had a
vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back
into the jury-box, or they would die.

“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King, in a very grave voice,
“until all the jurymen are back in their proper places-all,” he
repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so.
Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put
the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was
waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to
move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; “not that it
signifies much,” she said to herself; “I should think it would be
quite as much use in the trial one way up as the other.” As soon as
the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and
their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to them,
they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the
accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to
do anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of
the court.

“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice.
“Nothing,” said Alice.

“Nothing whatever?” persisted the King.
“Nothing whatever,” said Alice.

“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They
were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the
White Rabbit interrupted:
“Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course,” he said, in a very
respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke.
“Unimportant, of course, I meant,” the King hastily said, and went
on to himself in an undertone, “important-unimportant-
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll



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