`Yes!' shouted Alice.

  `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the

procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

  `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side.

She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously

into her face.

  `Very,' said Alice:  `--where's the Duchess?'

  `Hush!  Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone.  He

looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised

himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and

whispered `She's under sentence of execution.'

  `What for?' said Alice.

  `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.

  `No, I didn't,' said Alice:  `I don't think it's at all a pity.

I said "What for?"'

  `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began.  Alice gave a

little scream of laughter.  `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a

frightened tone.  `The Queen will hear you!  You see, she came

rather late, and the Queen said--'

  `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,

and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up

against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or

two, and the game began.  Alice thought she had never seen such a

curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and

furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live

flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to

stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

  The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her

flamingo:  she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,

comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down,

but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened

out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it

WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a

puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:

and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,

it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled

itself, and was in the act of crawling away:  besides all this,

there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she

wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers

were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the

ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very

difficult game indeed.

  The players all played at once without waiting for turns,

quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in ()