"A thim-ble," said Al-ice looking quite sad.
"Hand it here," said the Do-do.
Then they all crowd-ed round her once more, while the Do-do hand-ed the
thim-ble back to Al-ice and said, "We beg that you accept this fine
thim-ble;" and when it had made this short speech they all cheered.
Al-ice thought the whole thing quite fool-ish, but they all looked so
grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think what to
say she bowed and took the thim-ble, while she looked as staid as she
could.
[Illustration]
The next thing was to eat the cakes: this caused some noise, as the
large birds said they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked
and had to be pat-ted on the back. It was o-ver at last and they sat
down in a ring and begged the Mouse to tell them a tale.
"You said you would tell us why you hate cats and dogs," said Al-ice.
"Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, as it turned to Al-ice
with a sigh.
"It is a long tail, I'm sure," said Al-ice, look-ing down at the Mouse's
tail; "but why do you call it sad?"
"I shall not tell you," said the Mouse, as it got up and walked off.
"Please come back and tell us your tale," called Al-ice; and all joined
in, "Yes, please do!" but the Mouse shook its head and walked on and was
soon out of sight.
"I wish I had our Di-nah here, I know I do!" said Al-ice. "She'd soon
fetch it back."
"And who is Di-nah, if I may dare to ask such a thing?" said one of the
birds.
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