The Rabbit Sends In A Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; Alice heard it muttering to itself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid-gloves and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called to her, in an angry tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!"

"He took me for his housemaid!" said Alice, as she ran off. "How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!" As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name "W. RABBIT" engraved upon it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves.

By this time, Alice had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her lips, saying to herself, "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for, really, I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!"

Before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, remarking, "That's quite enough—I hope I sha'n't grow any more."

Alas! It was too late to wish that! She went on growing and growing and very soon she had to kneel down on the floor. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself, "Now I can do no more, wha tev er happens. What will become of me?"

Luckily for Alice, the little mag ic b ottle had now had its full effect and she grew no larger. After a few minutes she hear d a voice outside and stopped to listen.

"Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice . "Fetch me my gloves this moment!" Thencame a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her and she trembled till she shoo k th e house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit and had no reason to be afraid of it.

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door and tried to open it; but as the door opened inwards and Alice's elbow was press ed h ard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it sayto itself, "Then I'll g o 'round and get in at the window."

"That you won't!" thought Ali ce; and after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, sh e suddenly spread out her hand and made asnatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little s hriek and a fall and a crash of bro ken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a c ucumber-frame or something of that sort.

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit's—" Pat!Pat! Where are you?" And then a voice she had never heard before, "Sure t hen, I'm here! D iggi ng for apples, yer honor!"

"Here! Come and help me out of this! Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the windo w?"

"Sure, it's an arm, yer honor!"

"Well, it's got no business the re, at any rate; go and take it away!"

There was a long silence after this an d Alice could only hear whispers now and then, and at last she spread out her hand ag ain and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks a nd more sounds of brok en g lass. "I wonder what they'll do next!" thought Alice. "As for pulling me out of the wi ndow, I only wish they could!"

She waited for some time without h earing anything more. At last came a rumbling of little cart-wheels and the sound of a good many voices all talking together. She made out the words: "Where's the other lad der? Bill's got the other—Bill! Here, Bill! Will the roof bear?—Who's to g o do wn the chimney?—Nay, I sha'n't! You do it! Here, Bill! The master s ays you've got to go down the chimney!"

Alice drew her foot as far down the c himney as she couldand waited till she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling a bout in the chimney close above her; then she gave one sharp kick and waited to see what would happen next.

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of "There goes Bill!" then the Rabbit's voice alone—"Catc h him, you by the hedge!" Then silence a nd t hen another confusion of voices—"Hold up his head—Brandy now—Don 't choke him—What happened to you?"

Lastcame a little f eeble, squeaking voice, "Well, I hardly know—No mor e, thank ye. I'm better now—all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the -box and up I goes like a sky-rocket!"

Afte r a minute or two of silence, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say , "A barrowful will do, to begin with."

"A barrowful of what?" though t Alice. But she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pe bbles came rattling in at the window and some of them hither in the face. Alice no ticed, with some surprise, that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor and abr ight idea came into her head. "If Ieat one of these cakes," she thought, "it's sure to m ake some change in my size."

So she swallowed one of the cakes an d was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house and found quite a crowd of lit tle animals and birds waiting outside. They all m ade a rush at Alice the moment she ap peared, but she ran off as hard as she could and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.

"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she wande red about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing i s to find my way into that lovely garden. I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other, but the great question is 'What?'"

Alice looked all arou nd her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she could notsee anything that loo kedlike the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself. She stretched herself u p on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its armsfolded, quietly smoking a long hookah a nd taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.