“So do I,” the White Queen whispered: “we’ll often say it over together, dear. And I’ll tell you a secret—I can read words of one letter! Isn’t _that_ grand! However, don’t be discouraged. You’ll come to it in time.” Here the Red Queen began again. “Can you answer useful questions?” she said. “How is bread made?” “I know _that_!” Alice cried eagerly. “You take some flour—” “Where do you pick the flower?” the White Queen asked. “In a garden, or in the hedges?” “Well, it isn’t _picked_ at all,” Alice explained: “it’s _ground_—” “How many acres of ground?” said the White Queen. “You mustn’t leave out so many things.” “Fan her head!” the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. “She’ll be feverish after so much thinking.” So they set to work and fanned her with bunches of leaves, till she had to beg them to leave off, it blew her hair about so. “She’s all right again now,” said the Red Queen. “Do you know Languages? What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?” “Fiddle-de-dee’s not English,” Alice replied gravely. “Who ever said it was?” said the Red Queen. Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time. “If you’ll tell me what language ‘fiddle-de-dee’ is, I’ll tell you the French for it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. But the Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said “Queens never make bargains.” “I wish Queens never asked questions,” Alice thought to herself. “Don’t let us quarrel,” the White Queen said in an anxious tone. “What is the cause of lightning?” “The cause of lightning,” Alice said very decidedly, for she felt quite certain about this, “is the thunder—no, no!” she hastily corrected herself. “I meant the other way.” “It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.” “Which reminds me—” the White Queen said, looking down and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, “we had _such_ a thunderstorm last Tuesday—I mean one of the last set of Tuesdays, you know.” Alice was puzzled. “In _our_ country,” she remarked, “there’s only one day at a time.” The Red Queen said, “That’s a poor thin way of doing things. Now _here_, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together—for warmth, you know.” “Are five nights warmer than one night, then?” Alice ventured to ask. “Five times as warm, of course.” “But they should be five times as _cold_, by the same rule—” “Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five times as warm, _and_ five times as cold—just as I’m five times as rich as you are, _and_ five times as clever!” Alice sighed and gave it up. “It’s exactly like a riddle with no answer!” she thought. “Humpty Dumpty saw it too,” the White Queen went on in a low voice, more as if she were talking to herself. “He came to the door with a corkscrew in his hand—” “What did he want?” said the Red Queen.