CHAPTER IV

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and

looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something;

and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess! The Duchess!

Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me

executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where CAN I have

dropped them, I wonder?' Alice guessed in a moment that it was

looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she

very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were

nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her

swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and

the little door, had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about,

and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE

you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of

gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And Alice was so much frightened

that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without

trying to explain the mistake it had made.

`He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran.

`How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd

better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'

As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door

of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT'

engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried

upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann,

and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and

gloves.

`How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, `to be going

messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on

messages next!' And she began fancying the sort of thing that

would happen: `"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready

for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see

that the mouse doesn't get out." Only I don't think,' Alice went

on, `that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering

people about like that!'

By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with