e able to manage it quite well
in time.'

Everything was happening so oddly that she didn't feel a bit surprised
at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one
on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came
there, but she feared it would not be quite civil. However, there would
be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. 'Please, would
you tell me--' she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen.

'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her.

'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready
for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to,
and the other person always waited for YOU to begin, you see nobody
would ever say anything, so that--'

'Ridiculous!' cried the Queen. 'Why, don't you see, child--' here she
broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly
changed the subject of the conversation. 'What do you mean by "If you
really are a Queen"? What right have you to call yourself so? You can't
be a Queen, you know, till you've passed the proper examination. And the
sooner we begin it, the better.'

'I only said "if"!' poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone.

The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a
little shudder, 'She SAYS she only said "if"--'

'But she said a great deal more than that!' the White Queen moaned,
wringing her hands. 'Oh, ever so much more than that!'

'So you did, you know,' the Red Queen said to Alice. 'Always speak the
truth--think before you speak--and write it down afterwards.'

'I'm sure I didn't mean--' Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen
interrupted her impatiently.

'That's just what I complain of! You SHOULD have meant! What do you
suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should
have some meaning--and a child's more important than a joke, I hope. You
couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands.'

'I don't deny things with my HANDS,' Alice objected.

'Nobody said you did,' said the Red Queen. 'I said you couldn't if you
tried.'

'She's in that state of mind,' said the White Queen, 'that she wants to
deny SOMETHING--only she doesn't know what to deny!'

'A nasty, vicious temper,' the Red Queen remarked; and then there was an
uncomfortable silence for a minute or two.

The Red Queen broke the silence by saying to the White Queen, 'I invite
you to Alice's dinner-party this afte