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24 THE POOL
“T shall be punished for it now, | suppose, by
being drowned in my own tears! That will be
a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything
is queer to-day.”
Just then she heard something splashing
about in the pool a little way off, and she swam
nearer to make out what it was: at first she
thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus,
but then she remembered how small she was
now, and she soon made out that it was only
a mouse that had shpped in lke hersell.
“Would it be of any use, now, thought
Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is
. so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think
very likely it can talk: at any rate, theres
7
no harm in trying.’ So she began: ‘‘O Mouse,
do you know the way out of this pool? I am
very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!”
(Alice thought this must be the right way of
speaking to a mouse: she had never done such
a thine before, but, she remembered having seen
in her brothers Latin Grammar, “A mouse—