 (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:
`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 certain it must be really offended. `We won'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 won'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 bright-eyed 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 can't remember half of them-- and it belongs to a farmer,
you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! |
 
|
`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.' 
`Not
like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. `Would YOU
like cats if you were me?' 
He
says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a sorrowful tone,
`I'm afraid I've offended it again!' For the Mouse was swimming away from
her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as
it went.