"Any others coming where?" inquired Alice.
"Here. I mean, might they have gotten prizes, too?"
"No, only you," said the flaxen-haired girl. "You were the only one expected."
"But," spoke the puzzled bunny rabbit, "if I was the only one expected, what was the use of giving prizes? No one else could have gotten here ahead of me; could they?"
"Please don't ask me," begged Alice. "All I know is that it's one of the riddles like those the March Hare asks, such as 'What makes the mirror look crooked at you?' The answer is it doesn't if you don't. In this case you get the prizes because there is no one else to give them to. So take them and have an adventure. I have to go see what the Duchess wants."
With that Alice faded away like the Cheshire Cat, beginning at her head and ending up at her feet, the last things to go being the buttons on her shoes.
"Well," said Uncle Wiggily to himself, "I have two prizes, it seems, of magic bottles. I wonder what I am to do with them?"
He looked at the red and blue corked bottles, holding one in each paw, and he was wondering whether it would be best to grow small or large, when, all at once, he felt himself caught from behind by a pair of big claws, and, looking over his shoulder, as best he could, Uncle Wiggily saw that he was held fast by a big alligator; a skillery-scalery chap with a double-jointed tail that he could swing back and forth like a pantry door.
"Ah, ha! I have you!" gurgled the 'gator.
"Yes, I see you have!" said Uncle Wiggily, sadly.