afraid that it would be offended again.
“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to
Alice, and sighing.
“It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she
kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her
idea of the tale was something like this:—
“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’.”
“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice, severely.
“What are you thinking of?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the
fifth bend, I think?”
“I had not!” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and
walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!”
“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily
offended, you know!”
The Mouse only growled in reply.
“Please come back, and finish your story!” Alice called after
it. And the others all joined in chorus “Yes, please do!” But the
Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
quicker.
“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it
was quite out of sight. And an old Crab took the opportunity of
saying to her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you
never to lose your temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young
Crab, a little snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an
oyster!”
“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud,
addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!”addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!”
“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said
the Lory.
Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about
her pet: “Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for
catching mice, you ca’n’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her
after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at
it!”
This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some
of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping
itself up very carefully, remarking “I really must be getting home:
the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!” And a Canary called out in a
trembling voice, to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high
time you were all in bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off,
and Alice was soon left alone.
“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a
melancholy tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure
she's the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I
shall ever see you any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry
again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a little
while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in
the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse
had changed his mind, and was coming back to finish his story.It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking
anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she
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, as she went hunting about,
and called out 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!” And Alice was so much frightened
that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
trying to explain the mistake it had made.
“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran.
“How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better
take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” 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.
“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going
messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages
next!” And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen:
“‘Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!’
‘Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to watch this mouse-hole
till Dinah comes back, and see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’
Only I don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in
the house if it began ordering people about like that!”