Alice's Adventures in Underland by DeAnna Knippling

Author:DeAnna Knippling [Knippling, DeAnna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wonderland Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

The pattering of footsteps belonged to the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something, and she heard it muttering to itself, “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as fungus is fungus! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid-gloves, and she very wickedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen, for the fan was tucked into Alice’s apron, and the gloves soon followed them.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice as she went hunting about, and it called out to her, in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here without your manacle and iron ball on? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan, and lock yourself up in the pantry before you eat someone! Quick, now—!”

* * * * *

“That is nonsense,” Ina said crossly. “She can’t lock herself up in the pantry and go fetch, too.”

Edith’s lip stuck out. “And that wasn’t very nice of you, Alice, to tease the Rabbit so!”

Alice said, “If he hadn’t wanted his gloves and fan stolen, then he oughtn’t have left a little girl locked up in that dining hall. One good trick deserves another.”

“That’s one good turn, my dear,” said Mr. Duckworth. “And that isn’t true. As Christians we must learn to turn the other cheek. Surely you wouldn’t be so wicked as to go about wronging those who had wronged you, would you?”

“I would,” Alice declared. “If someone gives me a smack in the face, I’ll strike them back, just as hard as I can.”

“That’s not ladylike.”

Alice had already been beaten that morning for her disagreement on the subject of ladylike behavior. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I shan’t allow myself to be beaten without trying to beat someone back,” she announced, despite the fact that, just that morning, she had done exactly that. “Whether it’s good manners or not.”

With that statement, all four of them turned to Mr. Dodgson, to make him declare his opinion in the matter.

Mr. Dodgson cleared his throat. “I have been, admittedly, more of Mr. Duckworth’s opinion, that when one is wronged, what one ought to do is to have patience. And yet, Mr. Duckworth, the having of patience seems to me insufficient to effect any result other than being wronged a second time. Some additional step seems to be lacking, between the patience and the wronging.”

“Oh?” Mr. Duckworth said, looking significantly at Mr. Dodgson, as if he once again wished that Mr. Dodgson would say rather less than he had, “What might that be?”

“Oh, no!” Edith wailed. “Not philophisy! I want a stooooory!”

Mr. Dodgson coughed softly into his glove. “Perhaps we should discuss this later. Let us return to the story, or we shall be here for all eternity, if not longer.

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