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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 11:
Who stole the tarts?, Lewis Carroll, Seite 2 ( von 4 )
On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled
the parchment scroll, and read as follows: -
"The Queen of
Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite away!"
"Consider your verdict," the King said to the jury.
"Not yet, not yet!" the Rabbit hastily interrupted. "There's a
great deal to come before that!"
"Call the first witness," said the King; and the White Rabbit blew
three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, "First witness!"
The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a
piece of bread-and-butter in the other. "I beg pardon, your Majesty,"
he began, "for bringing these in: but I hadn't quite finished my tea when
I was sent for."
"You ought to have finished," said the King. "When did you
begin?"
The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court,
arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. "Fourteenth of March, I
think it
was," he said.
"Fifteenth," said the March Hare.
"Sixteenth," added the Dormouse.
"Write that down," the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly
wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced
the answer to shillings and pence.
"Take off your hat," the King said to the Hatter.
"It isn't mine," said the Hatter.
"Stolen!" the
King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the
fact.
"I keep them to sell," the Hatter added as an explanation: "I've
none of my own. I'm a hatter."
Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring hard at the Hatter, who
turned pale and fidgeted.
"Give your evidence," said the King; "and don't be nervous, or
I'll have you executed on the spot."
This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one
foot to the other looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a
large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.
Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a
good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger
again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on
second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room
for her.
"I wish you wouldn't squeeze so," said the Dormouse, who was sitting
next to her. "I can hardly breathe."
"I can't help it," said Alice very meekly: "I'm growing."
"You've no right to grow
here," said
the Dormouse.
"Don't talk nonsense," said Alice more boldly: "you know you're
growing too."
"Yes, but I
grow at a reasonable pace," said the Dormouse: "not in that
ridiculous fashion." And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the
other side of the court.
All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as
the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court,
"Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!" on which the
wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
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