Chapter 4 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; 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 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!'
By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window,
and on it (as she had hoped) 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 eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking glass. There was no label
this time with the words 'DRINK ME,' but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. 'I
know SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself, 'whenever I eat or drink
anything; so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow large again,
for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: 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, saying to herself 'That's quite
enough. I hope I shan't grow any more. As it is, I can't get out at the door. I do wish
I hadn't drunk quite so much!'
Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had
to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she
tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled
round her head. 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,
whatever happens. What WILL become of me?'
Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew
no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance
of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.
'It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't always growing
larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't
gone down that rabbit-hole and yet and yet it's rather curious, you know, this sort of
life! I do wonder what CAN have happened to me! When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied
that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought
to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one
but I'm grown up now,' she added in a sorrowful tone; 'at least there's no room to grow up
any more HERE.'
'But then,' thought Alice, 'shall I NEVER get any older than I am now? That'll be a
comfort, one way never to be an old woman but then always to have lessons to learn!
Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!'
'Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. 'How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's
hardly room for YOU, and no room at all for any lesson books!'
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 all!' 'Do as I tell you, you coward!'
and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time
there were TWO little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. 'What a number of cucumber
frames there must be!' thought Alice. 'I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out
of the window, I only wish they COULD! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!'
She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels,
and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: 'Where's
the other ladder? Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the other Bill! fetch it here,
lad! Here, put 'em up at this corner. No, tie 'em together first they don't reach half
high enough yet . Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular . Here, Bill! catch hold
of this rope . Will the roof bear? Mind that loose slate. Oh, it's coming down! Heads below!'
(a loud crash) 'Now, who did that?. It was Bill, I fancy Who's to go down the chimney?
Nay, I shan't! YOU do it! That I won't, then! Bill's to go down. Here, Bill! the master
says you're to go down the chimney!'
'Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said Alice to herself. 'Shy, they
seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: this fireplace
is narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!'
She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a
little animal (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about
in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself 'This is Bill,' 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
along. 'Catch him, you by the hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices.
'Hold up his head. Brandy now. Don't choke him. How was it, old fellow? What happened
to you? Tell us all about it!'
Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, ('That's Bill,' thought Alice,) 'Well, I hardly
know. No more, thank ye; I'm better now but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you all I
know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky rocket!'
'So you did, old fellow!' said the others.
'We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and Alice called out as loud as she
could, 'If you do. I'll set Dinah at you!'
There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, 'I wonder what they WILL
do next! If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off.' After a minute or two, they
began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, 'A barrowful will do, to begin
with.'
'A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment
a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in
the face. 'I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out, 'You'd better
not do that again!' which produced another dead silence.
Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes
as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. 'If I eat one of these
cakes,' she thought, 'it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it can't possibly
make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose.'
So she swallowed one of the cakes, and 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 little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little
Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea pigs, who were giving it
something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; 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 wandered about in the wood,
'is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely
garden. I think that will be the best plan.'
It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only
difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was
peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made
her look up in a great hurry.
An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching
out one paw, trying to touch her. 'Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and
she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought
that it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite
of all her coaxing.
Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to
the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp
of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind
a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the
other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in
its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with
a carthorse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the
thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very
little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while,
till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth,
and its great eyes half shut.
This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off at once,
and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded
quite faint in the distance.
'And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup
to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves: 'I should have liked teaching
it tricks very much, if if I'd only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten
that I've got to grow up again! Let me see how IS it to be managed? I suppose I ought
to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?'
The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the
blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or
drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the
same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind
it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes
immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms
folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of
anything else.
End of Chapter