White Knight came and put it on. He thought it was his own helmet.’

The knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh. ‘I’m afraid you must have hurt him,’ she said in a trembling voice, ‘being on the top of his head.’

‘I had to kick him, of course,’ the Knight said, very seriously. ‘And then he took the helmet off again — but it took hours and hours to get me out. I was as fast as — as lightning, you know.’

‘But that’s a different kind of fastness,’ Alice objected.

The Knight shook his head. ‘It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!’ he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as