And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite

a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice

outside, and stopped to listen.


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

this moment!” Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice

knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook

the 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 pressed hard against it, that

attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself “Then I’ll

go round and get in at the window.”


“That you won’t!” thought Alice, and, after waiting

till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly

spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of

anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken

glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a

cucumber-frame, or something of the sort.


Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where

are you?” And then a voice she had never heard before, “Sure then

I’m here! Digging for apples, yer honour!”


“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rabbit angrily. “Here!

Come and help me out of this!” (Sounds of more broken glass.)


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


“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!” (He pronounced it

“arrum.”)


“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole

window!”


“Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.”


“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it

away!”


There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and

then; such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at