She came up with two hedge-hogs in a fierce fight, and thought now was a good time to strike one of them, but her mal-let was gone to the oth-er side of the ground, and she saw it in a weak sort of way as it tried to fly up in-to a tree.
By the time she had caught the bird and brought it back, the fight was o-ver, and both hedge-hogs were out of sight. "I don't care much," thought Al-ice, "for there is not an arch on this side the ground." So she went back to have some more talk with her friend.
When she reached the place, she found quite a crowd round the Cat. The King and the Queen and the sol-dier who had come with the axe, to cut off the Cat's head, were all talking at once, while all the rest stood with closed lips and looked quite grave.
As soon as they saw Al-ice, they want-ed her to say which one was right, but as all three spoke at once, she found it hard to make out what they said.
The sol-dier said that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a bod-y to cut it off from; that he had nev-er had to do such a thing, and he wouldn't be-gin it now, at his time of life.
The King said that all heads could be cut off, and that you weren't to talk non-sense.
The Queen said, if some-thing wasn't done in less than no time, heads should come off all round. (It was this last threat that had made the whole crowd look so grave as Al-ice came up.)
Al-ice could think of nothing else to say but, "Ask the Duch-ess, it is her Cat."
"Fetch her here," the Queen said to the sol-dier, and he went off like an ar-row.