“have you ever seen an ineptitude?” asked the cheshire cat suddenly; the cat was nothing if not abrupt.

“can you tell me what you are doing here?” alice inquired politely.

“not in real life,” said alice. “have you any about here?{4}”

“a few,” answered the cat comprehensively. “over there, for instance,” it added, contracting its pupils to the requisite focus, “is the most perfect specimen we have.”

alice followed the direction of its glance and noticed for the first time a figure sitting in a very uncomfortable attitude on nothing in particular. alice had no time to wonder how it managed to do it, she was busy taking in the appearance of the creature, which was something like a badly-written note of interrogation and something like a guillemot, and seemed to have been trying to preen its rather untidy plumage with whitewash. “what a dreadful mess it’s in!” she remarked, after gazing at it for a few moments in silence. “what is it, and why is it here?”

“it hasn’t any meaning,” said the cat, “it simply is.”

“can it talk?” asked alice eagerly.

“it has never done anything else,” chuckled the cat.

“can you tell me what you are doing here?” alice inquired politely. the ineptitude shook its head with a deprecatory motion and commenced to drawl, “i haven’t an idea.{5}”

“it never has, you know,” interrupted the cheshire cat rudely, “but in its leisure moments” (alice thought it must have a good many of them) “when it isn’t playing with a gutta-percha ball it unravels the groundwork of what people believe—or don’t believe, i forget which.”

the queen.

with apologies to sir john tenniel

“it really doesn’t matter which,” said the ineptitude, with languid interest.{6}

“of course it doesn’t,” the cat went on cheerfully, “because the unravelling got so tangled that no one could follow it. its theory is,” he continued, seeing that alice was waiting for more, “that you mustn’t interfere with the inevitable. slide and let slide, you know.”

“but what do you keep it here for?” asked alice.

“oh, somehow you can’t help it; it’s so perfectly harmless and amiable and says the nastiest things in the nicest manner, and the king just couldn’t do without it. the king is only made of pasteboard, you know, with sharp edges; and the queen”—here the cat sank its voice to a whisper—“the queen comes from another pack, made of brummagem ware, without polish, but absolutely indestructible; always pushing, you know; but you can’t push an ineptitude. might as well try to hustle a glacier.”

“that’s why you keep so many of them about,” said alice.

“of course. but its temper is not what it used to be. lots of things have happened to worry it.”

“what sort of things?”

“oh, people have been dying off in round numbers, in the most ostentatious manner, and{7} the ineptitude dislikes fuss—but hush, here’s the king coming.”

his majesty was looking doleful and grumpy, alice thought, as though he had been disturbed in an afternoon nap. “who is this, and what is that cat doing here?” he asked, glancing gloomily at alice and her companion.

the king was fast asleep.

“i really must ask you to give me notice of these questions,” said the ineptitude, with a yawn.

“there’s a dragon loose somewhere in the garden,” the king went on peevishly, “and i am{8} expected to help in getting it under control. do i look as if i could control dragons?”

alice thought he certainly did not.

“what do you propose doing?” drawled the ineptitude.

“that’s just it,” said the king. “i say that whatever is done must be done cautiously and deliberately; the treasurer says that whatever is done must be done cheaply—i am afraid the treasurer is the weakest member of the pack,” he added anxiously.

“only made of bristol board, you know,” explained the cat aside to alice.

“what does the queen say about it?” asked the ineptitude.

“the queen says that if something is not done in less than no time there’ll be a dissolution.”

both looked very grave at this, and nothing was said for some minutes. the king was the first to break the silence. “what are you doing with that whitewash?” he demanded. “the queen said everything was to be painted khaki.”

“i know,” said the creature pathetically, “but i had run out of khaki; the unforeseen again, you know; and things needed whitewash so badly.{9}”

the cat had been slowly vanishing during the last few minutes, till nothing remained of it but an eye. at the last remark it gave a wink at alice and completed its eclipse.

when alice turned round she found that both the king and the ineptitude were fast asleep.

“it’s no good remaining here,” she thought, and as she did not want to meet either the queen or the dragon, she turned to make her way out of the street.

“at any rate,” she said to herself, “i know what an ineptitude is like.{11}{10}”