Chapter 12 - Alice's Evidence `Here!'
cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she
had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that
she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all
the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling
about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had
accidentally upset the week before.
`Oh, I BEG your pardon!' she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box, or they would die. `The trial cannot proceed,' said the King in a very grave voice, `until all the jurymen are back in their proper places-- ALL,' he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said do.
Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; `not that it signifies much,' she said to herself; `I should think it would be QUITE as much use in the trial one way up as the other.' As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the court. |
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