SAWDUST AND SIN
in, and the Queen shouted out, "Off with her head!"'
At this point Jerry collapsed forward, suddenly and completely, his bald pate between his knees. Charlotte was not very angry this time. The sudden development of tragedy in the story had evidently been too much for the poor fellow. She straightened him out, wiped his nose, and, after trying him in various positions, to which he refused to adapt himself, she propped him against the shoulder of the (apparently) unconscious Rosa. Then my eyes were opened, and the full measure of Jerry's infamy became apparent. This, then, was what he had been playing up for! The rascal had designs, had he? I resolved to keep him under close observation.
'If you'd been in the garden,' went on Charlotte reproachfully, 'and flopped down like that when the Queen said "Off with his head!" she'd have offed with your head; but Alice wasn't that sort of girl at all. She just said, "I'm not afraid of you, you're nothing but a pack of cards"—O dear! I've got to
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