now, dear?" said the mouse, turning to Alice as it
spoke.

"As wet as ever," said poor Alice, "it doesn't seem to dry me at
all."

"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to his feet, "I
move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
energetic remedies--"

"Speak English!" said the Duck, "I don't know the meaning of half
those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do
either!" And the Duck quacked a comfortable laugh to itself. Some
of the other birds tittered audibly.

"I only meant to say," said the Dodo in a rather offended tone,
"that I know of a house near here, where we could get the young
lady and the rest of the party dried, and then we could listen
comfortably to the story which I think you were good enough to
promise to tell us," bowing gravely to the mouse.

The mouse made no objection to this, and the whole party moved
along the river bank, (for the pool had by this time began to
flow out of the hall, and the edge of it was fringed with rushes
and forget-me-nots,) in a slow procession, the Dodo leading the
way. After a time the Dodo became impatient, and, leaving the
Duck to bring up the rest of the party, moved on at a quicker
pace with Alice, the Lory, and the Eaglet, and soon brought them
to a little cottage, and there they sat snugly by the fire,
wrapped up in blankets, until the rest of the party had arrived,
and they were all dry again.

Then they all sat down again in a large ring on the bank, and
begged the mouse to begin his story.

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the mouse, turning to
Alice, and sighing.

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the mouse's tail, which was coiled nearly all round the
party, "but why do you call it sad?" and she went on puzzling
about this as the mouse went on speaking, so that her idea of the
tale was something like this:

We lived beneath the mat
Warm and snug and fat
But one woe, & that
Was the cat!
To our joys
a clog, In
our eyes a
fog, On our
hearts a log
Was the dog!
When the
cat's away,
Then
the mice
will
play,
But, alas!
one day, (So they say)
Came the dog and
cat, Hunting