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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-'
I took a corkscrew from the shelf;
I went to wake them up myself.
And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but-"
There was a long pause.
"Is that all?" Alice timidly asked.
"That's all," said Humpty Dumpty. "Good-by."
This was rather sudden, Alice thought; but, after such a very strong hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil to stay. So she got up and held out her hand. "Good-by, till we meet again!" she said as cheerfully as she could.
"I shouldn't know you again if we did meet," Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake. "You're so exactly like other people."
"The face is what one goes by, generally," Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.
"That's just what I complain of," said Humpty Dumpty. "Your face is the same as everybody has- the two eyes, so" (marking their places in the air with his thumb), "nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now, if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance-or the mouth at the top-that would be some help."
"It wouldn't look nice," Alice objected.
But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said, "Wait till you've tried."
Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said "Good-by!" once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away; but she couldn't help saying to herself as she went, "Of all the unsatisfactory" (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a long word to say) " of all the unsatisfactory people I ever met-" She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.