Al-ice thought she had nev-er seen such a strange cro-quet ground in all
her life: it was all ridges; the balls were live hedge-hogs; the
mal-lets were live birds, and the sol-diers bent down and stood on their
hands and feet to make the arch-es.
At first Al-ice found it hard to use a live bird for a mal-let. It was a
large bird with a long neck and long legs. She tucked it un-der her arm
with its legs down, but just as she got its neck straight and thought
now she could give the ball a good blow with its head, the bird would
twist its neck round and give her such a queer look, that she could not
help laugh-ing; and by the time she had got its head down a-gain, she
found that the hedge-hog had crawled off. Then too there was al-ways a
ridge or a hole in the way of where she want-ed to send her ball; and
she couldn't find an arch in its place, for the men would get up and
walk off when it pleased them. Al-ice soon made up her mind that it was
a ve-ry hard game to play.
The Queen was soon in a great rage, and stamped a-bout, shout-ing "Off
with his head!" or "Off with her head!" with each breath.
Al-ice felt quite ill at ease; to be sure, she had not as yet had cause
to feel the wrath of the Queen, but she knew not how soon it might be
her turn; "and then," she thought, "what shall I do?"
As she was look-ing round for some way to get off with-out be-ing seen,
she saw a strange thing in the air, which she at last made out to be a
grin, and she said to her-self, "It's the Cat; now I shall have some one
to talk to.
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