small voice, close to her ear, said, You might make a joke on
that something about horse and hoarse, you know.
Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, She must be labelled
Lass, with care, you know
And after that other voices went on ( What a number of people there are
in the carriage! thought Alice), saying, She must go by post, as
she s got a head on her She must be sent as a message by the
telegraph She must draw the train herself the rest of the way and
so on.
But the gentleman dressed in white paper leaned forwards and whispered
in her ear, Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a
return-ticket every time the train stops.
Indeed I shan t! Alice said rather impatiently. I don t belong to
this railway journey at all I was in a wood just now and I wish I could
get back there.
You might make a joke on _that_, said the little voice close to her
ear: something about you _would_ if you could, you know.
Don t tease so, said Alice, looking about in vain to see where the
voice came from; if you re so anxious to have a joke made, why don t
you make one yourself?
The little voice sighed deeply: it was _very_ unhappy, evidently, and
Alice would have said something pitying to comfort it, If it would
only sigh like other people! she thought. But this was such a
wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn t have heard it at all, if it
hadn t come _quite_ close to her ear. The consequence of this was that
it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts from the
unhappiness of the poor little creature.
I know you are a friend, the little voice went on; a dear friend,
and an old friend. And you won t hurt me, though I _am_ an insect.
What kind of insect? Alice inquired a little anxiously. What she
really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she
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