OCR Output

122 THE QUEEN'S

sion that she could not help bursting out laugh¬
ing: and when she had got its head down, and
was going to begin again, it was very provoking
to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself,
and was in the act of crawling away: besides .
all this, there was generally a ridge or a furrow
in the way wherever she wanted to send the
hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were
always getting up and walking off to other parts
of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion
that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without wait¬
ing for turns, quarrelling all the while, and
fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short
time the Queen was in a furious passion, and
went stamping about, and shouting “Off with
his head!” or “ Off with her head!” about once
in a minute.

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure,
she had not as yet had any dispute with the
Queen, but she knew that it might happen any
minute, “and then,” thought she, “what would

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