ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No,
it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written
up somewhere.'
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to
do, so Alice soon began talking again. 'Dinah'll
miss me very much to-night, I should think!'
(Dinah was the cat.) 'I hope they'll remember
her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I
wish you were down here with me! There are no
mice in the air,
I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's
very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat
bats, I wonder?' And here Alice began to get
rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a
dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats
eat bats?' and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?'
for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
question, it didn't much matter which way she
put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had
just begun to dream that she was walking hand
in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
earnestly, 'Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you
ever eat a bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump!
down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry
leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on
to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it
was all dark overhead; before her was another
long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment
to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and
was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a
corner, 'Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's
getting!'