Page 39 - English Expedition Class 6

‘Th ey all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of them do.’
‘I don’t know of any that do,’ Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a
conversation.
‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s a fact.’
Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce
some other subject of conversation.
[Some time and a few more curious incidents later, Alice found herself in the open air outside the
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house. Th e Duchess had gone to play a game of croquet with the Queen. Left in Alice’s care, the queer
little baby had turned into a rather handsome pig and trotted off into the woods. Alice was refl ecting
on this interesting turn of events when she spotted the grinning cat again.]
She was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off .
Th e Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought. Still, it had very long
claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly,
as she did not at all know whether it would like • Would you say the behaviour of the
the name; however, it only grinned a little wider. Duchess shows that she was mad as
‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she well?
went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I
• Do you think the Cheshire cat was
ought to go from here?’ pleased with the name Alice gave it,
‘Th at depends a good deal on where you want or did it just grin out of habit?
to get to,’ said the Cat.
• Do you think Alice was timid by
‘I don’t much care where –’ said Alice.
nature? Why/Why not?
‘Th en it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said
the Cat.
‘– so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. ‘What sort of people live
about here?’
‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter , and in that direction,’
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waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare . Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’
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‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat. ‘We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on. ‘And how do you know that
you’re mad?’

3 croquet: (pronounced krau-kei) a game played on a 5 The name March Hare is derived from the unusual
lawn in which players knock wooden balls through a behaviour often exhibited by hares during their
series of curved wires or hoops with a large wooden breeding season, which begins in March. The madness
hammer of the Hatter and the Hare is a playful reference to the
4 hatter: a person who makes and sells hats. The phrase popular phrases associated with them.
mad as a hatter is a light-hearted way to suggest that
a person is suff ering from insanity.
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