n talk: at any rate, there's 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 thing before, but
she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse--of
a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!') The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes,
but it said nothing.

'Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; 'I daresay it's
a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.' (For, with all
her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago
anything had happened.) So she began again: 'Ou est ma chatte?' which
was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a
sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.
'Oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt
the poor animal's feelings. 'I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'

'Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. 'Would
YOU like cats if you were me?'

'Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: 'don't be angry
about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd
take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet
thing,' Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the
pool, 'and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and
washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's
such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried
Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she
felt certain it must be really offended. 'We won't talk about her any
more if you'd rather not.'

'We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his
tail. 'As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always HATED
cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!'

'I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of
conversation. 'Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?' The Mouse did not
answer, so Alice went on eagerly: 'There is such a nice little dog near
our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you
know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when
you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, an