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Finally she did find hers; it was engaged in a fight with another head, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her leg mallet had pulled itself across to the other side of the graveyard, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to dig itself back into the ground, using its rotted heel and grasping toes.

By the time she had caught the leg and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the heads were out of sight: ‘but it doesn’t matter much,’ thought Alice, ‘as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.’ So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend.

As she passed by one of the dead soldiers, she stopped to admire the strange jeweled collar. It seemed to be welded together rather clumsily, so much so that when she reached up to test it, the thing fell off the soldier’s neck and fell to the ground.

Suddenly the soldier began to stumble and moan, his eyes rolling round in his head. His teeth began to gnash terribly and he turned on Alice. She fell back, and the soldier reached for her. But before he could touch her, a small squad of soldiers were advancing on their mate and bearing long sharp axes. A swing, a swipe, and the zombie soldier’s head went flying off to join the other heads gnashing and tonguing at the ground around her. The poor dead soldier’s body fell to the ground next to his collar. The other soldiers gazed at the loosed collar in suspicion.

Alice said nothing and hurried away. Oh, how she hoped the Red Queen didn’t hear about that.

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.

The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at his time of life.

The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.

The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)

Alice could think of nothing else to say but ‘It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask her about it.’

‘She’s in prison,’ the Queen said to the executioner: ‘fetch her here.’ And the executioner went off like an arrow.

The Cat’s scraggly black head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.

Chapter 9 The Corpse Turtle’s Story

‘You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!’ said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, and they walked off together.

Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.

‘When I’M a Duchess,’ she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), ‘I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,’ she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, ‘and vinegar that makes them sour—and chamomile that makes them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that: then they wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know—’

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. ‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’

‘Perhaps it hasn’t one,’ Alice ventured to remark.

‘Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as she spoke.

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

‘The game’s going on rather better now,’ she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little.

‘’Tis so,’ said the Duchess: ‘and the moral of that is— “Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the world go round!”’

Alice thought perhaps it was a nice juicy meat pie that did the trick instead, but she kept that to herself, for even thinking on a sweet meat pie was making her stomach grumble and roil with hunger. Instead, Alice whispered: ‘Somebody said that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!’

‘Ah, well! It means much the same thing,’ said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, ‘and the moral of that is—“Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.”’

‘How fond she is of finding morals in things!’ Alice thought to herself. ‘I wonder what moral she would find in me taking a nice big bite of her cheek.’ And for a moment, Alice seriously contemplated it, for the older woman’s powdered pocked cheek was well within biting range, and her stomach was still demanding meat; but she forced herself to keep her teeth to herself. She wouldn’t want to risk hearing yet another moral from the Duchess. She’d heard quite enough as it was.

‘I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,’ the Duchess said after a pause: ‘the reason is, that I’m doubtful about the temper of your leg. Shall I try the experiment?’

For a moment, Alice was confused by her remark, but then remembered she still carried her squirming leg mallet under her arm. ‘He might kick,’ Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious to have the experiment tried.

‘Very true,’ said the Duchess: ‘legs and mustard both have a kick. And the moral of that is— “Birds of a feather flock together.”’

‘Only mustard isn’t a bird,’ Alice remarked.

‘Right, as usual,’ said the Duchess: ‘what a clear way you have of putting things!’

‘It’s a mineral, I think,’ said Alice.

‘Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is— “The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”’

‘Oh, I know!’ exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, ‘it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.’

‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess; ‘and the moral of that is— “Be what you would seem to be” —or if you’d like it put more simply— “Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”’

‘I think I should understand that better,’ Alice said very politely, ‘if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’ And even the dismembered leg must have been weary of the Duchess because it began to squirm most irritably and Alice had to use both hands to keep it in place.