Through the Looking Glass
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.
However, she didn't see why the Red Queen should be the only one to give orders, so, as an experiment, she called out “Waiter! Bring back the pudding!” and there it was again in a moment like a conjuring-trick. It was so large that she couldn't help feeling a LITTLE shy with it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she conquered her shyness by a great effort and cut a slice and handed it to the Red Queen.
“What impertinence!” said the Pudding. “I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of YOU, you creature!”
It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn't a word to say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp.
“Make a remark,” said the Red Queen: “it's ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!”
“Do you know, I've had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me to-day,” Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed upon her; “and it's a very curious thing, I think— every poem was about fishes in some way. Do you know why they're so fond of fishes, all about here?”
She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. “As to fishes,” she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth close to Alice's ear, “her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?”
“Her Red Majesty's very kind to mention it,” the White Queen murmured into Alice's other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. “It would be SUCH a treat! May I?”
“Please do,” Alice said very politely.
The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice's cheek.
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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