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12 CHAPTER II. THE POOL OF TEARS -^m* in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. 'I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out, 'I shall be pun- ished for it now, I 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 slipped in like herself. 'Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, 'to speak to this mouse? Every- thing is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk; at any rate, there's no harm in try- ing.' So she began, 'O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swim- ming about here, O Mouse!' (Al- ice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse; she had never done such a thing be- fore, but she remembered having ^ ^fe^az=*3^ seen m j^j- brother's Latin Gram- mar, 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, T 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. T quite forgot you didn't like cats.'
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