Dialogue following No. 3

CATERPILLAR. That is not right.

ALICE. Not quite right, I’m afraid. Some of the words have got altered.

CATERPILLAR. It’s wrong from beginning to end. Good day.

CATERPILLAR and Mushroom are drawn off. Enter WHITE RABBIT.

RABBIT. The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh! my fur and whiskers. She’ll get me executed as sure as ferrets are ferrets. Where can I have dropped them I wonder?

ALICE (aside) He’s looking for his fan and gloves.

She also looks for them. The RABBIT then notices her.

RABBIT. Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan. Quick now!

ALICE (aside) He takes me for his housemaid. How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am. But I’d better get him his fan and gloves.

(picks up fan and gloves and gives them to RABBIT)

RABBIT. Thank you, Mary Ann, thank you. Now wait for the Duchess, she’s cominng here with the baby and the cook.

Exit RABBIT

ALICE. Oh dear me! I’m Mary Ann now, and the Duchess is coming, and the baby, and the cook. Are they going to cook the baby, I wonder?

Enter DUCHESS carrying child. COOK with a saucepan and pepper castor, and CHESHIRE CAT

ALICE. Please would you tell me why your cat grins like that?

DUCHESS. It’s a Cheshire Cat, and that’s why. (to baby) Pig!

ALICE. I didn’t know that Cheshire Cats always grinned; in fact I didn’t know that cats could grin.

DUCHESS. They all can and most of ‘em do.

ALICE. I don’t know of any that do.

DUCHESS. You don’t know much and that’s a fact.

COOK. There’s nothing like pepper say I. There’s not half enough yet! Nor a quarter enough!

  Boil it so easily. Mix it so greasily, Stir it so sneezily, One, two, three. One for the Missis, two for the cat, and three for the baby.

The COOK peppers soup and baby alternately.

ALICE. Oh, please mind what you’re doing! Oh, there goes his precious nose!

DUCHESS. If everybody minded their own business, the world would go round a great deal faster than it does.

ALICE. Which would not be an advantage. Just think what work it would make with the day and night. You see, the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis –

DUCHESS. Talking of axes, chop off her head.

ALICE. Twenty-four hours, I think - or is it twelve -

DUCHESS. Oh don’t bother me. I never could abide figures.