“The little fishes are in bed.”

I said to him, I said it plain,

“Then you must wake them up again.”

I said it very loud and clear;

I went and shouted in his ear.’

Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, ‘I wouldn’t have been the messenger for anything!’

‘But he was very stiff and proud;

He said “You needn’t shout so loud!”

And he was very proud and stiff;

He said “I’d go and wake them, if —