"Who are you?" asked Alice, nervously.
"I... am... Long... Distance... Davis..." the Slugman sluggishly replied, putting an age between each word. "And... who... are... you?"
"I'm Alice," replied Alice, "and you're a slug!"
"I... am... not... a... slug..." Long Distance Davis replied, just as slowly as before. "I... am... a... snail..."
"So where is your shell?" (Alice knew just enough about gastropodology to understand that a snail had a shell, whereas a slug did not.)
"Wherever... I... lay... my... hat... is... my... shell..." With this utterance the Snailman lay down on the dirt floor and then started to smooth his body into his hat. Around and around the spirals he went, until he had almost vanished, in fact, only his golden trumpet remained in sight. "Please don't go home to your shell, Mister Snailman!" Alice pleaded. "Please talk to me."
"What's... to... talk... about?" was Long Distance Davis's slovenly reply, from within the depths of his shell hat: "I... am... under... my... hat... and... also... under... arrest..."
"For what crime?" asked Alice.
"For... the... crime... of... playing... music..."
"Is it a crime to play music in the future?"
"I... was... playing... too... slowly..."
"I'm getting awfully confused, Mister Snailman; why should slowness be against the law?"
"The... Civil... Serpents... hate... waiting..."
"And what is it exactly that you're waiting for?" demanded Alice.
"I'm... waiting... for... the... next... note... to... escape... from... my... trumpet."
"Will you play me a tune right now, Mister Long Distance?" asked Alice politely. "It would surely pass the time."
"I... shall... play... you... my... latest... composition..." Upon these torpid words the Snailman slid completely free of his shell, so that it once again resembled a hat. "This... tune... is... entitled... 'Miles... Behind'..." He then raised his shining trumpet to his greasy lips and blew out a single note:
"Parp!" went the trumpet. Long Distance Davis then lowered the instrument.
"Is that it?" asked Alice (having noticed that a jigsaw piece rested in the bell of the trumpet).
"That... is... the... beginning... of... the... piece..." Long Distance drawled.
"But why are you talking so slowly, Mister Snailman?" asked Alice (stealing the jigsaw piece from the Snailman's trumpet whilst he was looking off into the far distance). "Aren't you very good at English?"
"I... don't... speak... Anguish..."
"I didn't say Anguish, I said English."
"Well... it... certainly... seems... like... you're... very... anguished..."
"What language do you speak then?" Alice was becoming quite exasperated at the Snailman's sluggishness. (Or should that be snailiness? I can't make my mind up, can you?)
"I... speak... in... Languish..." the Snailman eventually replied.
"And what is Languish?" asked Alice.
"Languish... is... the... lazy... language..."
The Snailman then raised his trumpet to his lips and once again blew into it, fully two notes this time. (During this musical passage Alice managed a quick glance at her latest jigsaw piece; it showed only a black and greasy patch of wet skin. Alice knew that the piece was for the snail missing from her gastropod house at London Zoo. She silently slipped it into her pinafore pocket.)
"Parp, parp!" went the trumpet, before it was lowered once again.
"Is this still the tune called 'Miles Behind'?" Alice asked.
"Miles... and... miles... behind..."
"This must be why they call you Long Distance Davis, because you take so very long to do hardly anything at all!"
This... is... why... they... call... me... Long... Distance... Davis..."
"Ridiculousness!" cried Alice, having completely lost her patience: "Here I am talking to a Snailman who can't even finish a sentence properly, when I have so very much to do! I have so much to find!"
"Alice... you... must... play... it... cool..."
"But I'm not playing anything!" Alice cried. "And how can I be cool, when I'm pressed up tight against a warm and wet giant of a Snailman in a tiny cell?"
"Cool... is... as... cool... does..."
"And what does cool do?"
"Cool... is... the... art... of... waiting..."
"Do you have anything to eat?" Alice asked then (having felt a wanting in her empty stomach, and also a wanting to change the subject). "Because I have grown mightily tired of waiting!"
"I... have... head... food..." replied Long Distance Davis, reaching into the bell end of his trumpet to produce a small velvet sack. This he slowly proceeded to unwrap; within its folds lay a silver jar, on which the words SWALLOW US were beautifully scripted in gold leaf. Long Distance Davis unscrewed the lid of the jar and then offered the contents to Alice. Alice took just one look at the contents and then reeled back, quite bilious at what she saw there.
"You're offering me worms to eat!" she cried.
"These... are... not... worms..." Long Distance drawled. "These... are... wurms..."
These are wurms!" Alice cried yet again, adding the U. "Won't they make me go crazy?"
"They... will... fulfil... your... need..."
"Very well then," Alice said (but only because she was so very hungry), "but you first."
With his untrumpeted hand, Long Distance Davis reached into the jar to bring up a wriggling, living specimen: this wurm he shovelled into his mouth. He then raised his trumpet to his lips to blow three more notes of the tune called "Miles Behind" --
"Parp, parp, parp!" went the trumpet.
Long Distance Davis then scooped up another greasy wurm from the jar. "Your... turn... Alice..." he meandered, "please... take... a... little... trip... with... me..."
Alice decided that she had very little choice anyway, if she wanted to eat, so she allowed Long Distance Davis to slither the wurm into her mouth.
Oh my goodness! The wurm was slippering its way down her throat! Alice fell back onto the bed in a falling faint.
And then everything went very slipperty-jipper indeed...
Alice is now floating along a long snake of water, through a slowly turning world of golden-afternoon colours. It takes her an age to realize that she is no longer inside the prison cell, it takes her an age and a half to realize that she is now lazily reclining in a small rowing boat. Her two sisters, Lorina and Edith, are aboard the boat with her, as is her friend, the kind Mister Dodgson. It takes Alice two whole ages to realize that Mister Dodgson is now telling fanciful stories to the three little maidens.
"Tell us more, Mister Dodgson!" shrieks Edith at Alice's left. "Tell us more! More, more, more!"
"But my dearest girls..." breathes Mister Dodgson, "the well of fancy has run quite dry, how can I possibly continue?"
"Oh but you must continue!" cries Alice from the boat's bed.
"The rest next time --" the storyteller tries in vain.
"It is next time!" the happy voices squeal as one.
"Oh very well then, if you insist..."