There was the Gentleman dressed in white paper with his friend the Goat in spectacles, walking about arm in arm and apparently discussing the contents of a newspaper from which the Gentleman in white paper read aloud bits of news. Rose heard him read an item that sounded like this:
“Billing and Cooing are to play the finals next Tuesday of the past week. A large and enthusiastic crowd cheered the victor, whose name we hope to secure the instant it is known.”
“Perfectly ridiculous,” grunted the Goat. “I might be supposed to know something of Billing, mightn’t I? Well, it’s poppycock, that’s what it is.”
At this moment the cow slipped an arm—or it must have been a leg, Rose thought later, into the one not taken by the Goat, and leaned affectionately over the Gentleman in white paper.
“And who knows about Cooing if not I?” she whispered, but in so loud a way that Rose couldn’t help hearing. “And I tell you it’s false as moonshine.”
Humpty Dumpty and Tweedledum and Tweedledee were all three sitting in a row on the coping in front of the Mock Turtle’s house. They were panting and fanning themselves, and they smiled amiably at the three girls.
“Have you learnt how to be real yet?” asked Tweedledee, in a loud voice.
“Or contrariwise?” demanded his brother.
“It’s your turn,” announced Humpty Dumpty.
But the girls couldn’t stop there. They wanted to join the dancers, who were spinning round and round in the dizziest, jolliest sort of a way in the middle of the square. The grass had vanished and in its place was a round shining floor, that looked like ice.