chapter 5 courtney meets bill

Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice. "Fetch me my gloves this moment!" Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it.

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Courtney heard it say to itself "Then I'll go round and get in at the window."

"That you won't!" thought Courtney , and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort.

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit's—"Pat! Pat! Where are you?" And then a voice she had never heard before, "Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!"

"Digging for apples, indeed!" said the Rabbit angrily. "Here! Come and help me out of this!" (Sounds of more broken glass.)

"Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?"

"Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!" (He pronounced it "arrum.")

"An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!"

"Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that."

"Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!"

Courtney herd this and said oh goodness not thats my arm pat then chimed in i have a solution Thank goodness! Thank goodness! Courtney said relived

There was a long silence after this, and Courtney could only hear whispers now and then; such as, "Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all!" "Do as I tell you, you coward!" and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. "What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!" thought Courtney . "I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!"

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: "Where's the other ladder? Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the other Bill! fetch it here, lad! Here, put 'em up at this corner No, tie 'em together first they don't reach half high enough yet Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope Will the roof bear? Mind that loose slate Oh, it's coming down! Heads below!" (a loud crash) "Now, who did that? It was Bill, I fancy Who's to go down the chimney? Nay, I shan't! You do it! That I won't, then! Bill's to go down Here, Bill! the master says you're to go down the chimney!"

"Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?" said Courtney to herself. "Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a little!"

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself "This is Bill," she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next. ""The first thing she heard was a general chorus of "There goes Bill!" then the Rabbit's voice along "" Catch him, you by the hedge!" then silence, and then another confusion of voices "Hold up his head—Brandy now—Don't choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us all about it!"

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, ("That's Bill," thought Courtney to herself,) "Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I'm better now but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!"

"So you did, old fellow!" said the others.

"We must burn the house down!" said the Rabbit's voice; and Courtney called out as loud as she could, "If you do ill destroy the house before you try it

There was a dead silence instantly, and Courtney thought to herself, "I wonder what they will do next! If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off." After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and Courtney heard the Rabbit say, "A barrowful will do, to begin with."

"A barrowful of what?" thought Courtney, but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment she got her answer as a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face. ow ow Courtney cried theyre throwing pebbles "I'll put a stop to this," she said to herself, and shouted out, "You'd better not do that again!" which produced another dead silence.

Courtney noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. "If I eat one of these cakes," she thought, "it's sure to make some change in my size; and as it can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose."

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.

"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan."