Alice felt there was no denying that. "Of course it would be all the better," she said; "but it wouldn't be all the better his being punished."
"You're wrong there, at any rate," said the Queen. "Were you ever punished?"
"Only for faults," said Alice.
"And you were all the better for it, I know!" the Queen said, triumphantly.
"Yes; but then I had done the things I was punished for," said Alice; "that makes all the difference."
"But if you hadn't done them," the Queen said, "that would have been better still; better, and better, and better!" Her voice went higher with each "better," till it got quite to a squeak at last.
Alice was just beginning to say, "There's a mistake somewhere—" when the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence un-
