Through the Looking Glass

Contrariwise.”

“Selfish things!” thought Alice, and she was just going to say “Good-night” and leave them, when Tweedledum sprang out from under the umbrella and seized her by the wrist.

“Do you see THAT?” he said, in a voice choking with passion, and his eyes grew large and yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a trembling finger at a small white thing lying under the tree.

“It's only a rattle,” Alice said, after a careful examination of the little white thing. “Not a rattleSNAKE, you know,” she added hastily, thinking that he was frightened: only an old rattle—quite old and broken.”

“I knew it was!” cried Tweedledum, beginning to stamp about wildly and tear his hair. “It's spoilt, of course!” Here he looked at Tweedledee, who immediately sat down on the ground, and tried to hide himself under the umbrella.

Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said in a soothing tone, “You needn't be so angry about an old rattle.”

“But it isn't old!” Tweedledum cried, in a greater fury than ever. “It's new, I tell you—I bought it yesterday—my nice New RATTLE!” and his voice rose to a perfect scream.

All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the umbrella, with himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to do, that it quite took off Alice's attention from the angry brother. But he couldn't quite succeed, and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in the umbrella, with only his head out: and there he lay, opening and shutting his mouth and his large eyes—'looking more like a fish than anything else,” Alice thought.

“Of course you agree to have a battle?” Tweedledum said in a calmer tone.

“I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the umbrella: “only SHE must help us to dress up, you know.”

So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned in a minute with their arms full of things—such as bolsters, blankets, hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. “I hope you're a good hand at pinning and tying strings?