Alice 4

l alone here!
As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see
that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while
she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be
growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure
herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was
now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon
found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she
dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the
sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and
now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little
door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden
key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than
ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this
before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!”
As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment,
splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that
she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by
railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in
her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go
to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the
sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row
of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she
soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when
she was nine feet high.
“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying
to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by
being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be
sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”
Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way
off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought
it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small
she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had
slipped in like herself.
“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse?
Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very
likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she
began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired
of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right
way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but
she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of
a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes,
but it said nothing.
“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s

a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all
her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago
anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which
was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a
sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with
fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she
had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like
cats.”
“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would
_you_ like cats if you were me?”
“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry

about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d
take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear
quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about
in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her
paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to
nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your
pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all
over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. “We won’t talk
about her any more if you’d rather not.”
“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his
tail. “As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always
_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name
again!”
“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of

conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not
answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog near
our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you
know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when
you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts
of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says
it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone,
“I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away
from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the
pool as it went.
So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we
won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the
Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face
was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low
trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my
history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.”
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the
birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a
Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice
led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.
CHAPTER III.
A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the

birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close
to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.
The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a
consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite
natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if
she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argume

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l alone here!

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s

“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry

“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the

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