Page:Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.djvu/148

128 "I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully: "and what are toves?"

"Well, toves are something like badgersthey're something like lizardsand they're something like corkscrews."

"They must be very curious-looking creatures."

"They are that," said Humpty Dumpty: "also they make their nests under sun-dialsalso they live on cheese."

"And what's to gyre and to gimble?"

"To gyre is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To gimble is to make holes like a gimblet."

"And the wabe is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"Of course it is. It's called 'wabe,' you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it"

"And a long way beyond it on each side," Alice added.

"Exactly so. Well then, mimsy is 'flimsy