"Why at the first verse, of course," the King said look-ing quite grave,
"and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
The White Rab-bit read:
"They told me you had been to her,
And spoke of me to him:
She gave me a good name, in-deed,
But said I could not swim.
"He sent them word that I had gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the mat-ter on
What would be-come of you?
"I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three, or more;
They all came back from him to you,
Though they were mine be-fore.
"My no-tion was, she liked him best,
(Be-fore she had this fit)
This must be kept from all the rest
But him and you and it."
"That's the best thing we've heard yet," said the King, rub-bing his
hands as if much pleased; "so now let the ju-ry--"
"If one of you can tell what it means," said Al-ice (she had grown so
large by this time that she had no fear of the King) "I should be glad
to hear it. I don't think there's a grain of sense in it."
The ju-ry all wrote down on their slates, "She doesn't think there's a
grain of sense in it." But no one tried to tell what it meant.
"If there's no sense in it," said the King, "that saves a world of work,
you know, as we needn't try to find it. And yet I don't know," he went
on, as he spread out the rhymes on his knee, and looked at them with one
eye: "I seem to find some sense in them--'said I could not swim'--you
can't swim, can you?" he added, turn-ing to the Knave.
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