Tweedledum and Tweedledee

THEY were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE". `I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself.

They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked "DUM".

`If you think we're wax-works,' he said, `you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow.'

`Contrariwise,' added the one marked "DEE", `if you think we're alive, you ought to speak.'

`I'm sure I'm very sorry,' was all Alice could say; for the words of the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she could hardly help saying them out loud:

`I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; `but it isn't so, nohow.'

`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

`I was thinking,' Alice said politely, `which is the best way out of this wood: it's getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?'

But the fat little men only looked at each other and grinned.

They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice couldn't help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying `First Boy!'

`Nohow!' Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again with a snap.

`Next Boy!' said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt quite certain he would only shout out `Contrariwise!' and so he did.

`You've begun wrong!' cried Tweedledum. `The first thing in a visit is to say "How d'ye do?" and shake hands!' And here the two brothers gave each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were free, to shake hands with her.

Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting the other one's feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing round in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was done (as well as she could make it out) by the branches rubbing one across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks.

`But it certainly was funny,' (Alice said afterwards, when she was telling her sister the history of all this), `to find myself singing "Here we go round the mulberry bush". I don't know when I began it, but somehow I felt as if I'd been singing it a long long time!'