The next moment there was a deafening outburst of drums, and Alice saw the Red King rushing through the wood with a big roll of paper.
“Dear me!” she heard him say to himself as he passed, “I hope I sha’n’t be late for the meeting, and I wonder how they’ll take my speech.”
Alice noticed that the Borogoves made no attempt to follow, but tried to look as if they didn’t care a bit. And away in the distance she heard a sort of derisive booing, with a brogue in it. “That must be the Mome Raths outgribing,” she thought.
THE AGED MAN
Westminster Gazette, May 16, 1901.]
(With apologies to Sir John Tenniel.)
I shook him well from side to side
Until his face was blue.
“Come, tell me where’s the Bill,” I cried,
“And what you’re going to do.”
He said, “I hunt for gibes and pins
To prick the Bishops’ calves,
I search for Royal Commissions, too,
To use as safety valves.”
[See the Debate on Temperance Legislation in the House of Lords, May 14, 1901.]