The first verse on the poem on page 9 means how does the crocodile do as good as he does. In other words how can people do as well as they do. In my opinion, Alice follows the rabbit out of curiosity; I believe that it was put in the book for the simple reason of catching the attention of young listeners. In my opinion, the story that the mouse tells is shaped like that because the author chose to be creative with his work. In a regular race there is a start, finish, and a winner. In a caucus race they start whenever they want, they stop when they want, and they argue a lot about who wins.