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“May it please your Majesty,” said Two very humbly, going down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying–“

“I see!” said the Queen, who had meantime been examining the roses, “off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the three unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

“You sha’n’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into her pocket: the three soldiers marched once round her, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.

“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen.

“Their heads are gone,” the soldiers shouted in reply, “if it please your Majesty!”

“That’s right!” shouted the Queen, “can you play croquet?”

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.

“Yes!” shouted Alice at the top of her voice.

“Come on then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

“It’s–it’s a very fine day!” said a timid little voice: she was walking by the white rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.

“Very,” said Alice, “where’s the Marchioness?”

“Hush, hush!” said the rabbit in a low voice, “she’ll hear you. The Queen’s the Marchioness: didn’t you know that?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Alice, “what of?”

“Queen of Hearts,” said the rabbit in a whisper, putting its mouth close to her ear, “and Marchioness of Mock Turtles.”

“What are they?” said Alice, but there was no time for the answer, for they had reached the croquet-ground, and the game began instantly.

Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in all her life: it was all in ridges and furrows: the croquet-balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live ostriches, and the soldiers had to double themselves up, and stand on their feet and hands, to make the arches.

The chief difficulty which Alice found at first was to manage her ostrich: she got its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck straightened out nicely, and was going to give a blow with its head, it would twist itself round, and look up into her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very confusing to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or a furrow in her way, wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, and quarrelled all the while at the tops of their voices, and in a very few minutes the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about and shouting “off with his head!” of “off with her head!” about once in a minute. All those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that, by the end of half an hour or so, there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody, and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice “have you seen the Mock Turtle?”

“No,” said Alice, “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.”

“Come on then,” said the Queen, “and it shall tell you its history.”

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, “you are all pardoned.”

“Come, that’s a good thing!” thought Alice, who had felt quite grieved at the number of executions which the Queen had ordered.