`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 salt water.  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 come to the general

conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find

a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in

the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and

behind them a railway station.)  However, she soon made 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 to-day.'

  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 out-of-the-way 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, come 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:  `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in

her French lesson-book.  The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the

water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.  `Oh, I beg

your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the

poor animal's feelings.  `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.' ()