QUEEN Idiot! What's your name, child? ALICE My name is Alice, so please your Majesty. QUEEN Off with her head! Off— ALICE Nonsense! KING Consider, my dear, she is only a child. QUEEN Can you play croquet? ALICE Yes. QUEEN Come on then. Get to your places. Where are the mallets? Here. DUCHESS [The FROG appears with the flamingoes and hedgehogs.] Why she; it's all her fancy, that. They never execute anyone. What does one do? ALICE QUEEN Get to your places! [She takes a flamingo, uses its neck as a mallet and a hedgehog as a ball. The FROG doubles himself into an arch. The KING does the same with the followers and the KNAVE offers himself as an arch for ALICE. Even though ALICE does not notice him he holds the arch position. The QUEEN shouts at intervals," Off with his head, off with her head."] ALICE Where are the Chess Queens? No, I didn't. I don't think it's at all a pity. I said, “What for?" RABBIT They boxed the Queen's ears. [ALICE gives a little scream of laughter.] RABBIT Oh, hush! The Queen will hear you! You see they came rather late and the Queen said - Oh dear, the Queen hears me [He hurries away.] ALICE [Noticing the KNAVE who still pretends to be an arch.] How can you go on thinking so quietly, with your head downwards? KNAVE What does it matter where my body happens to be? My mind goes on working just the same. The fact of it is, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep on inventing new things. KING Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came through the wood? ALICE Yes, I did; several thousand I should think. KING Four thousand, two hundred and seven, that's the exact number. They couldn't send all the horses, you know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven't sent the two messengers, either. What's the war about? ALICE KING The red Chess King has the whole army against us but he can't kill a man who has thirteen hearts. [The DUCHESS, QUEEN, FROG, and followers go out. The KNAVE and the FIVE-SPOT, SEVEN-SPOT, and NINE-SPOT OF HEARTS stand behind the KING.] |