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.

[Illustration]

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 cakes as they lay on the
floor, and a bright thought came to her. "If I eat one of these cakes,"
she said, "it is sure to make some change in my size; and as it can't
make me larg-er, I hope it will change me to the size I used to be."

So she ate one of the cakes and was glad to see that she shrank quite
fast. She was soon so small that she could get through the door, so she
ran out of the house and found quite a crowd of beasts and birds in the
yard. The poor liz-ard, Bill, was in the midst of the group, held up by
two guin-ea pigs, who gave it some-thing to drink out of a bot-tle. They
all made a rush at Al-ice, as soon as she came out, but she ran off as
hard as she could, and was soon safe in a thick wood.

"The first thing I've got to do," said Al-ice to her-self, as she walk