Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson

								

earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with
their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think--" (she was rather glad
there was no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the
right word) "--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country
is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?" (and she
tried to curtsey as she spoke--fancy curtseying as you're falling
through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) "And what an
ignorant little girl she'll think me! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps
I shall see it written up somewhere."
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 but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first
idea was that this 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!