disappeared.
Never mind! said the King, with an air of great relief. Call the
next witness. And he added in an undertone to the Queen, Really, my
dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my
forehead ache!
Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling
very curious to see what the next witness would be like, for they
haven t got much evidence _yet_, she said to herself. Imagine her
surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill
little voice, the name Alice!
CHAPTER XII.
Alice s Evidence
Here! cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how
large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such
a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt,
upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there
they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of
goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before.
Oh, I _beg_ your pardon! she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and
began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident
of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of
idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the
jury-box, or they would die.
The trial cannot proceed, said the King in a very grave voice, until
all the jurymen are back in their proper places _all_, he repeated
with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so.
Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put
the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its
tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon
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