Ahab's Adventure's In Wonderland; or The Rabbit

Chapter Forty-Seven

The Cat grinned when it saw Ahab. It looked good-natured, but still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so he felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

'Cheshire Puss,' he began, rather uncertainly, as he did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' whispered Ahab, and he went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where--' said Ahab.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Ahab added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'

Ahab felt that this could not be denied, so he tried another question. 'What sort of people live about here?'

'In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, 'lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, 'lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Ahab remarked.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Ahab.

'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

Ahab didn't think that proved it at all; however, he went on 'And how do you know that you're mad?'

'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

'I suppose so,' said Ahab.

'Well, then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

'I call it purring, not growling,' said Ahab.

'Call it what you like,' said the Cat. 'Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?'

'I should like it very much,' said Ahab, for he remembered slyly that the White Rabbit was meant to play, 'but I haven't been invited yet.'

'You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

Ahab was not much surprised at this, he was getting so used to queer things happening. While he was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

'By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. 'I'd nearly forgotten to ask.'

'It turned into a pig,' Ahab quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

'I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

Ahab waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two he walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before,' he said; 'the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.' As he said this, he looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

'Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

'I said pig,' replied Ahab; 'and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'

'All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Ahab; 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'

Then Ahab added, "And I'm still no closer to the White Rabbit!"