Page:Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.djvu/144

124 "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don'ttill I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to meanneither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be masterthat's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of themparticularly verbs, they're the proudestadjectives you can do anything with, but not verbshowever, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"