Page:Alice's adventures in Wonderland - (IA alicesadventures00carr 21).djvu/94

84 twelve things" (she had to say "things," you see, for some of them were beasts and some were birds), "I guess are the ju-rors." She said this last word two or three times as she was proud that she knew it; for she was right when she thought that few girls of her age would have known what it all meant.

The twelve ju-rors all wrote on slates.

"What can they have to write now?" Al-ice asked the Gry-phon, in a low tone. "The tri-al has not be-gun yet."

"They're put-ting down their names," the Gry-phon said, "for fear they should for-get them."

"Stu-pid things!" Al-ice said in a loud voice, but stopped at once, for the White Rab-bit cried out, "Si-lence in court!" and the King looked round to make out who spoke.

Al-ice could see quite well that the ju-rors all wrote down "stu-pid things!" on their slates, she could e-ven make out that one of them didn't know how to spell "stu-pid" and that he asked the one by his side to tell him, "A nice mud-dle their slates will be in by the time the tri-al's ended," thought Al-ice.

One of the ju-rors had a pen-cil that squeaked as he wrote. This, of course, Al-ice could not stand, so she went round near him, and soon found a chance to get it from him. This she did in such a way that the poor ju-ror (it was Bill, the Liz-ard) could not make out at all where it was, so he wrote with one fin-ger for the rest of the day. Of course, this was of no use, as it left no mark on the slate.

"Read the charge!" said the King.