was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. ‘As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!’ ‘I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,’ said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. ‘And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,’ continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, ‘and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!’ ‘But I’m NOT a serpent, I tell you!’ said Alice. ‘I’m a--I’m a--’ ‘Well! WHAT are you?’ said the Pigeon. ‘I can see you’re trying to invent something!’ ‘I--I’m a little girl,’ said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day. ‘A likely story indeed!’ said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. ‘I’ve seen a good m