And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more—
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

These lines come from Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” an inset poem recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Through the Looking-Glass (1871). In the poem’s narrative, the Walrus and the Carpenter entice a group of young oysters to leave their bed and follow them on a walk. The quoted stanza describes the oysters finally arriving in a rush—“thick and fast”—as they struggle through the surf to reach shore, just before the pair’s betrayal becomes clear. Carroll’s mock-epic rhythm and piling repetition (“more, and more, and more—”) heighten the sense of momentum and impending consequence.

The stanza uses comic exuberance to depict a mass movement driven by naïve eagerness: the oysters surge forward in ever-greater numbers, “hopping” and “scrambling” like children rushing toward promised pleasures. The repetition and accelerating cadence suggest contagion—once the first follow, the rest come in a flood. In the larger poem, that buoyant energy becomes tragicomic irony, because the oysters’ trust and conformity lead them directly into exploitation. The frothy waves and chaotic shoreward scramble also evoke a threshold moment: leaving the safety of the sea-bed for the exposed land, the oysters cross into a world where they are vulnerable to predation.