"We are getting quite important," said the Porker to the Seal, "For we're 'European Questions,' as a Premier seems to feel. See the 'unintelligent' Lobster, even he, makes an advance! Oh, we lead the Politicians of the earth a pretty dance. Will you, won't you, Yankee Doodle, England, and gay France. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, let _us_ lead the dance? "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be, When they take _us_ up as matters of the High Diplomacee." But the Seal replied, "They brain us!" and he gave a look askance At the goggle-eyed mailed Lobster, who was loved (and boiled) by France. "Would they, could they, would they, could they, give us half a chance? Lobsters, Pigs, and Seals all suffer, Commerce to advance!" "What matters it how grand we are!" his plated friend replied, If our destiny is Salad, or the Sausage boiled or fried? Though we breed strife 'twixt England, and America, and France, If we're chopped up, or boiled, or brained where is _our_ great advance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you chuck away a chance Of peace in pig-stye, or at sea, to play the game of France?" "Thank you, it's a very amusing dance--_to watch_," said ALICE, feeling very glad that she had not to stand up in it. "You may not have lived much under the Sea" (said the Real Turtle) ("I haven't," said ALICE), "and perhaps you were never introduced to a Lobster--" (ALICE began to say "I once tasted--" but checked herself hastily, and said, "No, never"),--"So you can have no idea what a delightful dance a (Diplomatic) Lobster Quadrille is!" "I dare say not," said ALICE. "Stand up and repeat '_'Tis the Voice of the Premier_,'" said the Griffin. ALICE got up and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of Lobsters, Pigs, and Seals, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- "'Tis the voice of the Premier; I heard him complain On the Ninth of November all prophecy's vain. I _must_ make some sort of a speech, I suppose. Dear DIZZY (who led the whole world by the nose) Said the world heard, for once, on this day, 'Truth and Sense' (_I.e._ neatly phrased Make-believe and Pretence), But when GLADDY's 'tide' rises, and lost seats abound, One's voice has a cautious and timorous sound." "I've heard this sort of thing so often before," said the Real Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense. Go on with the next verse." ALICE did not dare disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:--