Chapter III

A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

The Mouse said, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle.

“Ahem!” said the Mouse, “are you all ready? Silence, if you please!”

And it began to talk about William the Conqueror.

“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver.

“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did you speak?”

“Not I!” said the Lory hastily.

“I proceed,” said the Mouse. “Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, found it—”

“Found WHAT?” said the Duck.

“Found IT,” the Mouse replied: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”

“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck, “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did those gentlemen find?”

The Mouse did not notice this question. “How are you, my dear?” it asked Alice.

“I’m wet,” said Alice.

How to get dry? They had a long talk about this, but it was hard to tell what was best.

“I think,” said the Dodo, “that the best thing to become dry is a Caucus-race.”

“What is a Caucus-race?” said Alice.

“Oh,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.”

First it painted a circle, and then everybody began to run. Soon they were quite dry again, and the Dodo said “The race is over!”

The birds and animals began to ask, “But who is the winner?”

Dodo said, “Everybody is a winner, and will have prizes.”

“But who will give the prizes?” they asked.

“She, of course,” said the Dodo, and pointed to Alice with the long claw. And everybody at once crowded round her and cried, “A prize, a prize!”

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, and handed them round as prizes.

“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse.

“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in your pocket?” he turned to Alice.

“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly.

“Give it to me,” said the Dodo.

The Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, “Please accept this elegant thimble”; and they all cheered. Alice simply bowed, and took the thimble.

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise. It was over at last and they sat down in a ring and begged the Mouse to tell them a tale.

“You promised to tell me your story, you know,” said Alice to the Mouse, “why do you hate cats and dogs,” she added in a whisper.

“It’s a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse. And it began:

 

“Fury said to a

$$$$$$$$$mouse, That he

$$$$$$$met in the

$$$$$house,

$$$‘Let us

$$$$$both go to

$$$$$$$law: I will

$$$$$$$$$prosecute

$$$$$$$$$$$YOU. —Come,

$$$$$$$$$$$I’ll take no

$$$$$$$$$$$denial; We

$$$$$$$$$must have a

$$$$$$$trial: For

$$$$$really this

$$$morning I’ve

$$$nothing

$$$to do.’

$$$$$Said the

$$$$$mouse to the

$$$$$$$cur, ‘Such

$$$$$$$$$a trial,

$$$$$$$$$$$dear Sir,

$$$$$$$$$$$$$With

$$$$$$$$$$$no jury

$$$$$$$$$or judge,

$$$$$$$would be

$$$$$wasting

$$$$$our

$$$$$breath.’

$$$$$$$‘I’ll be

$$$$$$$judge, I’ll

$$$$$$$$$be jury,’

$$$$$$$$$$$Said

$$$$$$$$$cunning

$$$$$$$$$$old Fury:

$$$$$$$$$$‘I’ll

$$$$$$$$$$try the

$$$$$$$$$$$whole

$$$$$$$$$$$cause,

$$$$$$$$$$$$$and

$$$$$$$$$$$condemn

$$$$$$$$$$$you

$$$$$$$$$$to

$$$$$$$$$$$death.’”

 

“It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, she looked at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?”

“I shall not tell you,” said the Mouse. It got up and walked away.

“Please come back and tell us your tale,” called Alice; and all joined in, “Yes, please do!”

But the Mouse shook its head.

“You are not listening!” said the Mouse to Alice severely. “What are you thinking of? You are always talking nonsense!” and was soon out of sight.

“Oh, where is my Dinah?” said Alice. “Dinah can bring her back.”

“And who is Dinah, if I may ask such a thing?” said one of the birds.

Alice was glad to talk about her pet.

“Dinah is our cat; and it catches mice very fast. Moreover, Dinah catches birds even faster! And it eats them at once!”

These words caused a great stir in the party. The birds rushed off; they were saying, “We must get home, it’s late, it’s time to sleep.”

Everybody went home, and Alice was soon alone. Poor Alice began to cry again, because she felt very lonely. Suddenly she heard some noise.

Chapter IV

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit, he was looking anxiously around and muttering to itself “The Duchess! The Duchess! She’ll get my head cut off! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! Where did I lose them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a moment that the Rabbit was looking for the fan and the pair of white gloves, but everything changed, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and told her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing here? Run home, and bring me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!”

And Alice was so much afraid that she ran off at once.

“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “But it’s better to bring him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.”

As she said this, she came to a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name “W. RABBIT” upon it. She went in, and hurried upstairs.

“How queer it is!” Alice said to herself. “I am the Rabbit’s servant. I think my next master will be Dinah herself!”

By this time she found her way into a tidy little room with a table by the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white gloves. She took up the fan and a pair of gloves, and noticed a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words “DRINK ME,” but Alice opened it and put it to her lips.

“Let’s see,” she said to herself, “what this bottle does. I hope it’ll make me large again!”

It did so indeed, and soon her head was near the ceiling. She said, “That’s enough.”

Alas! it was too late! She was growing, and growing, and growing. In another minute there was not even room for her, and she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney. Luckily for Alice, the magic stopped, and she grew no more. But she felt unhappy.

“It was much better at home,” thought poor Alice, “when I wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, when mice and rabbits did not order me. Why did I crawl into that rabbit-hole?”

After a few minutes she heard a voice outside.

“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. “Bring me my gloves!”

Alice knew it was the Rabbit, and she trembled. The Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it.

The Rabbit said to itself “Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.”

“You won’t” thought Alice, and she suddenly spread out her hand. She heard a little shriek and a crash of broken glass. Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where are you?”

And another voice, “I’m here!”

“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?”

“It’s an arm, your honour!”

“An arm, you fool! So big! It fills the whole window!”

“Sure, it does, your honour: but it’s an arm.”

“Well, go and take it away!”

There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers; such as, “I don’t like it, your honour, at all, at all!”

“Do as I tell you, you coward! We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice shouted as loud as she could, “If you do this, I’ll call Dinah!”

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, “What will they do next?”

After a minute or two, a shower of little pebbles came in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face. Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes, and a bright idea came into her head.

“If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’ll make some change in my size; it can make me smaller, I suppose.”

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and she became smaller. Soon she was small enough to get through the door. She ran out of the house, and found a crowd of little animals and birds outside. Alice ran away. She was running and running, and finally she saw a large mushroom near her, about the same height as herself. Her eyes immediately met a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, quietly smoking a hookah.