Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she could, that she had lost her way. “I don’t know what you mean by _your_ way,” said the Queen: “all the ways about here belong to _me_—but why did you come out here at all?” she added in a kinder tone. “Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say, it saves time.” Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the Queen to disbelieve it. “I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to herself, “the next time I’m a little late for dinner.” “It’s time for you to answer now,” the Queen said, looking at her watch: “open your mouth a _little_ wider when you speak, and always say ‘your Majesty.’” “I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty—” “That’s right,” said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice didn’t like at all, “though, when you say ‘garden,’—_I’ve_ seen gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.” Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but went on: “—and I thought I’d try and find my way to the top of that hill—” “When you say ‘hill,’” the Queen interrupted, “_I_ could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.” “No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: “a hill _can’t_ be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—” The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but _I’ve_ heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!” Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen’s tone that she was a _little_ offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to the top of the little hill. For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all directions over the country—and a most curious country it was. There were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook. “I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!” Alice said at last. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there are!” She added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick with excitement as she went on. “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this _is_ the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I _wish_ I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should _like_ to be a Queen, best.” She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like, as Lily’s too young to play; and you’re in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen—” Just at this moment, somehow or other, they began to run.