Tuesday, 12 August 2014

95

good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.'
'Why do you sit out here all alone?' said Alice, not wishing to begin an argument.
'Why, because there's nobody with me!' cried Humpty Dumpty. 'Did you think I didn't know the answer to that? Ask another.'
'Don't you think you'd be safer down on the ground?' Alice went on, not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. 'That wall is so very narrow!'
'What tremendously easy riddles you ask!' Humpty Dumpty growled out. 'Of course I don't think so! Why, if ever I did fall off – which there's no chance of – but if I did –' Here he pursed up his lips and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. 'If I did fall,' he went on, 'the King has promised me – with his very own mouth – to – to –'
'To send all his horses and all his men,' Alice interrupted, rather unwisely.
'Now I declare that's too bad!' Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a sudden passion. 'You've been listening at doors – and behind trees – and down chimneys – or you couldn't have known it!'
'I haven't, indeed!' Alice said very gently. 'It's in a book.'