their heads like extinguishers, and drank all that trickled down their
faces others upset the decanters, and drank the wine as it ran off the
edges of the table and three of them (who looked like kangaroos)
scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly lapping up
the gravy, just like pigs in a trough! thought Alice.
You ought to return thanks in a neat speech, the Red Queen said,
frowning at Alice as she spoke.
We must support you, you know, the White Queen whispered, as Alice
got up to do it, very obediently, but a little frightened.
Thank you very much, she whispered in reply, but I can do quite well
without.
That wouldn t be at all the thing, the Red Queen said very decidedly:
so Alice tried to submit to it with a good grace.
( And they _did_ push so! she said afterwards, when she was telling
her sister the history of the feast. You would have thought they
wanted to squeeze me flat! )
In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep in her place while she
made her speech: the two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, that
they nearly lifted her up into the air: I rise to return thanks
Alice began: and she really _did_ rise as she spoke, several inches;
but she got hold of the edge of the table, and managed to pull herself
down again.
Take care of yourself! screamed the White Queen, seizing Alice s hair
with both her hands. Something s going to happen!
And then (as Alice afterwards described it) all sorts of things
happened in a moment. The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking
something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top. As to the
bottles, they each took a pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on
as wings, and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about in all
directions: and very like birds they look, Alice thought to herself,
as well as she could in the dreadful confusion that was beginning.
98