The
Knave stood in front of them in chains, with a sol-dier on each side to
guard him; and near the King was the White Rab-bit, with a trum-pet in
one hand and a roll of pa-per in the other. In the mid-dle of the court
was a ta-ble with a large dish of tarts on it. They looked so good that
it made Al-ice feel as if she would like to eat some of them. "I wish
they'd get the tri-al done," she thought, "and hand round the pies!" But
there seemed no chance of this, so to pass the time a-way she looked
round at the strange things a-bout her.
This was the first time Al-ice had been in a court of this kind, and she
was quite pleased to find that she knew the names of most things she saw
there. "That's the judge," she thought, "I know him by his great wig."
The judge, by the way, was the King, and as he wore his crown on top of
his wig, he looked quite ill at ease.
"And that's the ju-ry box," thought Al-ice, "and those twelve things"
(she had to say "things," you see, for some of them were beasts and some
were birds), "I guess are the ju-rors." She said this last word two or
three times as she was proud that she knew it; for she was right when
she thought that few girls of her age would have known what it all
meant.
The twelve ju-rors all wrote on slates.
"What can they have to write now?" Al-ice asked the Gry-phon, in a low
tone. "The tri-al has not be-gun yet."
"They're put-ting down their names," the Gry-phon said, "for fear they
should for-get them.
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