...still the
Queen cried `Faster! Faster!' and dragged her along. `Are
we nearly there?' Alice managed to pant out at last. `Nearly
there!' the Queen repeated.
`Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster! And they ran on for
a time in silence,
with the wind whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her
hair off
her head, she fancied. `Now! Now!' cried the Queen. `Faster!
Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly
touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice
was getting quite exhausted, they stopped,
and she found herself sitting
on the ground, breathless and giddy.
The Queen propped
her up against a tree, and said kindly,
`You may rest a little now.' Alice looked round her in great
surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under
this tree the whole time! Everything's just
as it was!' `Of course it
is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?' `Well, in
OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally
get to somewhere else
-- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'
`A slow sort of country!'
said the Queen. `Now, HERE, you see, it
takes all the running YOU can do, to keep
in the same place. If you want to get somewhere
else, you must run at least twice as fast as that
!'
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