"Get up!" said the Queen in a shrill loud voice, and the three men jumped up, at once, and bowed to the King, and Queen and to the whole crowd.
"Leave off that!" screamed the Queen; "you make me gid-dy." Then she turned to the rose tree and asked, "What have you been do-ing here?"
"May it please your ma-jes-ty," said Two, and went down on one knee as he spoke, "we were try-ing"
"I see!" said the Queen, who in the mean time had seen that some of the ros-es were paint-ed red and some were still white. "Off with their heads!" and the crowd moved on, while three of the sol-diers stayed to cut off the heads of the poor men, who ran to Al-ice for help.
"They shan't hurt you," she said, as she hid them in a large flow-er pot that stood near. The three sol-diers walked round and looked for them a short while, then marched off.
"Are their heads off?" shout-ed the Queen.
"Their heads are gone, if it please your ma-jes-ty," the sol-diers shouted back.
"That's right!" shouted the Queen. "Can you play cro-quet?" she asked Al-ice.
"Yes," shouted Al-ice.
"Come on then!" roared the Queen, and Al-ice went on with them.
"It's—it's a fine day!" said a weak voice at her side. It was the White Rab-bit who peeped up in-to her face.
"Yes," said Al-ice: "where's the Duch-ess?"
