Free Alice in Zombieland by Lewis & Cook Carroll Page B

minute or two.
          ‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’
          ‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘ very ill.’
          Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’
          ‘Take some more tea,’ the Dead Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
          ‘I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’
          ‘You mean you can’t take less ,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’
          ‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.
          ‘Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly. His eyes rolled around in their dark sockets, like wet pebbles, and he gave a half growl, half snicker.
          Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and one of the gnawed-upon bones (the cup was rather smeared with blood and other fluids, but she could no longer control her hunger), and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. ‘Why did they live at the bottom of a well?’
          The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-well.’
          ‘There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the Dead Hare went ‘Sh! sh!’ and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.’
          ‘No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one .’
          ‘One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. ‘And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—’
          ‘What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
          ‘Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.
          ‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.’ He tossed a chipped and bloodied cup to the ground.
          He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the Dead Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the Dead Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the Dead Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. But it did not hold milk; instead thick dark blood, with chunks of torn flesh swimming in it, clopped to the dirty plate and table. She pushed the plate away with a disgusted grimace.
          Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?’
          ‘You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?’
          ‘But they were in the well,’ Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
          ‘Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘—well in.’
          This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.
          As it spoke, its fur was falling in little dry clumps at its feet even as it tried in vain to retrieve the stray pieces and put them back.
          ‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—’
          ‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.
          ‘Why not?’ said the Dead Hare.
          Alice was silent, but her curiosity was getting the best of her again. She wanted to hear the story about the