Alice in Wonderland | Page 7

to grow an-y more here."
She heard a voice out-side and stopped to list-en.
"Ann! Ann!" said the voice, "fetch me my gloves, quick!" Then came the sound of feet on the stairs. Al-ice knew it was the Rab-bit and that it had come to look for her. She quaked with fear till she shook the house. Poor thing! She didn't think that she was now more than ten times as large as the Rab-bit, and that she had no cause to be a-fraid of it.
Soon the Rab-bit came to the door and tried to come in, but Al-ice's arm pressed it so hard the door would not move. Al-ice heard it say, "Then I'll go round and get in at the win-dow."
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"That you won't!" thought Al-ice; then she wait-ed till she heard the Rab-bit quite near the win-dow, then spread out her hand and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of it, but she heard a shriek and a fall.
Next came an an-gry voice--the Rab-bit's--"Pat! Pat! Where are you?" And then a voice which was new to her, "Sure then, I'm here! Dig-ging for apples, yer hon-or!"
"Dig-ging for ap-ples, in-deed!" said the Rab-bit. "Here! Come and help me out of this! Now, tell me, Pat, what's that in the win-dow?"
"Sure it's an arm, yer hon-or"
"An arm, you goose! Who-ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole win-dow!"
"Sure it does, yer hon-or; but it's an arm for all that."
"Well, it has no right there; go and take it out!"
For a long time they seemed to stand still, but now and then Al-ice could hear a few words in a low voice, such as, "Sure I don't like it, yer hon-or, at all, at all!"
"Do as I tell you, you cow-ard!" and at last she spread out her hand and made a snatch in the air. This time there were two lit-tle shrieks.
"I should like to know what they'll do next! As to their threats to pull me out, I on-ly wish they could. I'm sure I don't want to stay in here."
She wait-ed for some time, but all was still; at last came the noise of small cart wheels and the sound of voi-ces, from which she made out the words, "Where's the oth-er lad-der? Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the oth-er. Bill, fetch it here, lad! Here, put 'em up at this place. No, tie 'em first--they don't reach half as high as they should yet--oh, they'll do. Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear? Mind that loose slate--oh, here it comes! Look out. (A loud crash.)--Now who did that? It was Bill, I guess--Who's to go down the chim-ney? Nay, I shan't! You do it!--That I won't then!--Bill's got to go down--Here, Bill, you've got to go down the chim-ney!"
"Oh, so Bill's got to come down, has he?" said Al-ice to her-self. "Why, they seem to put all the work on Bill. I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal; this fire-place is small, to be sure, but I think I can kick some."
She drew her foot as far down as she could, and wait-ed till she heard a small beast (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) come scratch! scratch! down the chim-ney quite close to her; then she said to her-self: "This is Bill," gave one sharp kick and wait-ed to see what would hap-pen next.
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The first thing she heard was, "There goes Bill!" then the Rab-bit's voice, "Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then all was still, then the voices--"Hold up his head--Wine now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fel-low? What sent you up so fast? Tell us all a-bout it!"
Last came a weak voice ("That's Bill," thought Al-ice), "Well, I don't know--no more, thank'ye, I'm not so weak now--but I'm a deal too shocked to tell you--all I know is, a thing comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a rocket."
"So you did, old fel-low," said the oth-ers.
"We must burn the house down," said the Rab-bit's voice, and Al-ice called out as loud as she could, "If you do, I'll set Di-nah at you!"
At once all was still as death, and Al-ice thought, "What will they do next? If they had an-y sense, they'd take the roof off."
Then she heard the Rab-bit say, "One load will do to start with."
"A load of what?" thought Al-ice, but she had not long to doubt, for soon a show-er of small stones came in at the win-dow, and some of them hit her in the face. "I'll put a stop to this," she said to her-self, and shout-ed out, "You stop that, at once!" A-gain all was still as death.
Al-ice saw that the stones all changed to small