Page:Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.djvu/115

Rh "That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first"

"Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing!"

"but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways."

"I'm sure mine only works one way," Alice remarked. "I can't remember things before they happen."

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.

"What sort of things do you remember best?" Alice ventured to ask.

"Oh, things that happened the week after next," the Queen replied in a careless tone.

"For instance, now," she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, "there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all."