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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll


6

“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After such a fall as this, I shall
think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all think
me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off
the top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I
wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud.
“I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me
see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think-” (for, you
see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the
school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for
showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her,
still it was good practice to say it over) “-yes that’s about the right
distance-but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got
to?” (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or
Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to
say.) Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right
through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the
people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I
think-” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time,
as it didn’t sound at all the right word) “-but I shall have to ask
them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is
this New Zealand? Or Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey as she
spoke-fancy, curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you
think you could manage it?) “And what an 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 was 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,
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll



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