【正文】 and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out, in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of fits (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one apiece, all round. “ But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse. “ Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice. “ Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. “ Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble”。 and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable——’” 13 “ Found what?” said the Duck. “ Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.” “ I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck: “it’s generally a frog, or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?” The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘ — found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William39。 but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in saltwater. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had e to the general conclusion that, wherever you go to on the English coast, you find a number of bathingmachines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodginghouses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made 10 out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. “ I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer today.” Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse, that had slipped in like herself. “ Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is so outoftheway down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen, in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!” The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. “ Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice. “I daresay it’s a French mouse, e over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: “O249。 but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. “ You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of 8 tears, until there was a large pool all around her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was ing. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kidgloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself, as he came, “Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! Wo’n’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one: so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, Sir——” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kidgloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking. “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. “ I39。 and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself “Which way? Which way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing。 but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had fotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she