"
"Stu-pid things!" Al-ice said in a loud voice, but stopped at once, for
the White Rab-bit cried out, "Si-lence in court!" and the King looked
round to make out who spoke.
Al-ice could see quite well that the ju-rors all wrote down "stu-pid
things!" on their slates, she could e-ven make out that one of them
didn't know how to spell "stu-pid" and that he asked the one by his side
to tell him, "A nice mud-dle their slates will be in by the time the
tri-al's ended," thought Al-ice.
One of the ju-rors had a pen-cil that squeaked as he wrote. This, of
course, Al-ice could _not_ stand, so she went round near him, and soon
found a chance to get it from him. This she did in such a way that the
poor ju-ror (it was Bill, the Liz-ard) could not make out at all where
it was, so he wrote with one fin-ger for the rest of the day. Of course,
this was of no use, as it left no mark on the slate.
"Read the charge!" said the King.
On this the White Rab-bit blew three blasts on the trum-pet, and then
from the pa-per in his hand read:
"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a sum-mer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite a-way!"
"The ju-ry will now take the case," said the King.
"Not yet, not yet!" the Rab-bit said in haste. "There is a great deal
else to come first."
[Illustration]
"Call the first wit-ness," said the King, and the White Rab-bit blew
three blasts on the trum-pet, and called out, "First wit-ness.
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