he was. He had a tall red night-cap on,
with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap,
and snoring loud--'fit to snore his head off!' as Tweedledum remarked.

'I'm afraid he'll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,' said Alice,
who was a very thoughtful little girl.

'He's dreaming now,' said Tweedledee: 'and what do you think he's
dreaming about?'

Alice said 'Nobody can guess that.'

'Why, about YOU!' Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly.
'And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?'

'Where I am now, of course,' said Alice.

'Not you!' Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. 'You'd be nowhere. Why,
you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'

'If that there King was to wake,' added Tweedledum, 'you'd go
out--bang!--just like a candle!'

'I shouldn't!' Alice exclaimed indignantly. 'Besides, if I'M only a sort
of thing in his dream, what are YOU, I should like to know?'

'Ditto' said Tweedledum.

'Ditto, ditto' cried Tweedledee.

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn't help saying, 'Hush! You'll
be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise.'

'Well, it no use YOUR talking about waking him,' said Tweedledum, 'when
you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're
not real.'

'I AM real!' said Alice and began to cry.

'You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying,' Tweedledee remarked:
'there's nothing to cry about.'

'If I wasn't real,' Alice said--half-laughing through her tears, it all
seemed so ridiculous--'I shouldn't be able to cry.'

'I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?' Tweedledum interrupted
in a tone of great contempt.

'I know they're talking nonsense,' Alice thought to herself: 'and it's
foolish to cry about it.' So she brushed away her tears, and went on as
cheerfully as she could. 'At any rate I'd better be getting out of the
wood, for really it's coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to
rain?'

Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and
looked up into it. 'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least--not
under HERE. Nohow.'

'But it may rain OUTSIDE?'

'It may--if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've no objection.
Contrariwise.'

'Selfish things!' thought Alice, and she was just going to say
'Good-night' and leave them, when Tweedledum sprang out from under the
umbrella and seized her by the wrist.

'Do you see THAT?' he said, in a v