Alice peeped over his shoulder and read: “The High Commissioner may tumble off his post; he balances very badly.”
“Could you tell me,” she asked, “what all the excitement is about just now?”
“Haven’t an idea,” said the White King, “unless it’s the awakening.”
THE AWAKENING.
“The what?” said Alice.
“The Red King, you know; he’s been asleep for ever so long, and he’s going to wake up to-day. Not that it makes any difference that I can see—he talks just as loud when he’s asleep.”
Alice remembered having seen the Red King, in rose-coloured armour that had got a little rusty, sleeping uneasily in the thickest part of the wood.
“The fact is,” the White King went on, “some of them think we’re only a part of his dream, and that we shall all go ‘piff’ when he wakes up. That is what makes them so jumpy just now. Oh,” he cried, giving a little jump himself, “there go some more!”
