“But what am _I_ to do?” said Alice\n“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling\n“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s\nperfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in\n“There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to\nherself, as well as she could for sneezing\nThere was certainly too much of it in the air\nEven the Duchess sneezed\noccasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling\nalternately without a moment’s pause\nThe only things in the kitchen\nthat did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting\non the hearth and grinning from ear to ear\n“Oh, _please_ mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down\nin an agony of terror\n“Oh, there goes his _precious_ nose!” as an\nunusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it\nthink of what work it would make with the day and night\n(In which the cook and the baby joined):\nyou may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice,\nflinging the baby at her as she spoke\n“I must go and get ready to play\ncroquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room\nthrew a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her\n“But perhaps it was only\nsobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there\n“If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,”\nsaid Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you\nnow!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible\nto say which), and they went on for some while in silence\nSo she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it\ntrot away quietly into the wood\nThe Cat only grinned when it saw Alice\nIt looked good-natured, she\nthought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she\nfelt that it ought to be treated with respect\n“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know\nwhether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little\n“Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on\n“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”\n“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat\n“I don’t much care where—” said Alice\n“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat\n“—so long as I get _somewhere_,” Alice added as an explanation\n“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long\nAlice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another\nVisit either you like: they’re both mad.”\n“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked\n“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here\n“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice\n