"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (ey was so much surprised, that for the moment ey quite forgot how to speak good English); "now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!" (for when ey looked down at eir feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). "Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I shan't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can -- but I must be kind to them," thought Alice, "or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas."
And ey went on planning to eirself how ey would manage it. "They must go by the carrier," ey thought; "and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look!
Alice's Right Foot, Esq.
Hearthrug,
near the Fender,
(with Alice's love).
"Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!"
Just then eir head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact ey was now more than nine feet high, and ey at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! It was as much as ey could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: ey sat down and began to cry again.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a great girl like you" (ey might well say this), "to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!" But ey went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round em, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.
After a time ey heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and ey hastily dried eir eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: Ey came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to eirself as Ey came, "Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! Wo'n't ey be savage if I've kept em waiting!" Alice felt so desperate that ey was ready to ask help of anyone; so, when the Rabbit came near em, ey began, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, sir -- " The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness as hard as ey could go.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, ey kept fanning eirself all the time ey went on talking: "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" And ey began thinking over all the children ey knew that were of the same age as eirself, to see if ey could have been changed for any of them.
"I'm sure I'm not Ada," ey said, "for eir hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and ey, oh! ey knows such a very little! Besides, ey's ey, and I'm I, and -- oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is -- oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome -- no, that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and say 'how doth the little --' " and ey crossed eir hands on eir lap as if ey were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but eir voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:
"How doth the little crocodile
Improve eir shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!"How cheerfully ey seems to grin,
How neatly spreads eir claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gentle smiling jaws!"
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and eir eyes filled with tears again as ey went on, "I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn. No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! it'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else' -- but, oh dear!" cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!"
As ey said this ey looked down at eir hands, and was surprised to see that ey had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while ey was talking. "How can I have done that?" ey thought. "I must be growing small again." Ey got up and went to the table to measure eirself by it, and found that, as nearly as ey could guess, ey was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: ey soon found out that the cause of this was the fan ey was holding, and ey dropped it hastily, just in time to save eirself from shrinking away altogether.
"That was a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find eirself still in existence; "and now for the garden!", and ey 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 ey said these words eir foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! ey was up to eir chin in salt water. Eir first idea was that ey had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway," ey said to eirself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in eir 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, ey soon made out that ey was in the pool of tears which ey had wept when ey was nine feet high.
"I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as ey swam about, trying to find eir 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 ey heard something splashing about the pool a little way off, and ey swam nearer to make out what it was: at first ey thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then ey remembered how small ey was now, and ey soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like eirself.
"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 ey 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: ey had never done such a thing before, but ey remembered having seen in eir brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse -- of a mouse -- to a mouse -- a mouse -- O mouse!") The Mouse looked at em rather inquisitively, and seemed to em to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I dare say it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all eir knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So ey began again: "Ou est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in eir 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 ey 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 em. Ey is such a dear quiet thing," Alice went on, half to eirself, as ey swam lazily about in the pool, "and ey sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking eir paws and washing eir face -- and ey is such a nice soft thing to nurse -- and ey'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 ey felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk about em any more if you'd rather not."
"We, indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of eir 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 ey says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! Ey 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 em as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.
So ey 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 em; 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.