one in a battle--to get one's head cut off.'

Alice laughed aloud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear
of hurting his feelings.

'Do I look very pale?' said Tweedledum, coming up to have his helmet
tied on. (He CALLED it a helmet, though it certainly looked much more
like a saucepan.)

'Well--yes--a LITTLE,' Alice replied gently.

'I'm very brave generally,' he went on in a low voice: 'only to-day I
happen to have a headache.'

'And I'VE got a toothache!' said Tweedledee, who had overheard the
remark. 'I'm far worse off than you!'

'Then you'd better not fight to-day,' said Alice, thinking it a good
opportunity to make peace.

'We MUST have a bit of a fight, but I don't care about going on long,'
said Tweedledum. 'What's the time now?'

Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said 'Half-past four.'

'Let's fight till six, and then have dinner,' said Tweedledum.

'Very well,' the other said, rather sadly: 'and SHE can watch us--only
you'd better not come VERY close,' he added: 'I generally hit everything
I can see--when I get really excited.'

'And _I_ hit everything within reach,' cried Tweedledum, 'whether I can
see it or not!'

Alice laughed. 'You must hit the TREES pretty often, I should think,'
she said.

Tweedledum looked round him with a satisfied smile. 'I don't suppose,'
he said, 'there'll be a tree left standing, for ever so far round, by
the time we've finished!'

'And all about a rattle!' said Alice, still hoping to make them a LITTLE
ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.

'I shouldn't have minded it so much,' said Tweedledum, 'if it hadn't
been a new one.'

'I wish the monstrous crow would come!' thought Alice.

'There's only one sword, you know,' Tweedledum said to his brother:
'but you can have the umbrella--it's quite as sharp. Only we must begin
quick. It's getting as dark as it can.'

'And darker,' said Tweedledee.

It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a
thunderstorm coming on. 'What a thick black cloud that is!' she said.
'And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it's got wings!'

'It's the crow!' Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm: and
the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a moment.

Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree.
'It can never get at me HERE,' she thought: 'it's far too large to
squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn't flap its wings
so--it m