【正文】 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。t like cats.” “ Not like cats!” cried the Mouse in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would you like cats, if you were me?” “ Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you’d take a fancy to cats, if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice——oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt 11 certain it must be really offended. “We wo’n’t talk about her any more if you’d rather not.” “ We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. “As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again!” “ I wo’n’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog, near our house, I should like to show you! A little brighteyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things—I ca’n’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it39。 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。t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly. “ What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucusrace.” “ What is a Caucusrace?” said Alice。 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, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could. The next thing was to eat the fits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds plained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. “ You promised to tell me your h