Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began
talking again. "Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!"
(Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at
tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no
mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very
like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice
began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy
sort of way, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "Do
bats eat cats?" for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question,
it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing
off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with
Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, "Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:
did you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon
a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment:
she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another
long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it.
There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and
was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh my ears
and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she
turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found
herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging
from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when
Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every
door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to
get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid
glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's
first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall;
but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small,
but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second
time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and
behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the
little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not
much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage
into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of
that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and
those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the
doorway; "and even if my head would go through," thought poor Alice, "it
would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could
shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin."
For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately,
that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really
impossible.
talking again. "Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!"
(Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at
tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no
mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very
like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice
began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy
sort of way, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "Do
bats eat cats?" for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question,
it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing
off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with
Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, "Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:
did you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon
a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment:
she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another
long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it.
There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and
was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh my ears
and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she
turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found
herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging
from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when
Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every
door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to
get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid
glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's
first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall;
but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small,
but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second
time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and
behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the
little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not
much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage
into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of
that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and
those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the
doorway; "and even if my head would go through," thought poor Alice, "it
would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could
shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin."
For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately,
that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really
impossible.