Read Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Online

Chapter IV 

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill 

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about 
as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself, 'The 
Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll 
get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, 
I wonder?' Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair 
of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, 
but they were nowhere to be seen - everything seemed to have changed since her 
swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had 
vanished completely. 

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out 
to her in an angry tone, 'Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run 
home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And 
Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed 
to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made. 

'He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran. 'How surprised 
he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and gloves - 
that is, if I can find them.' As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on 
the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name 'W. Rabbit' engraved 
upon it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she 
should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had 
found the fan and gloves. 

'How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, 'to be going messages for a rabbit! 
I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next!' And she began fancying the 
sort of thing that would happen: ' "Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready 
for your walk!" - "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see that the mouse 
doesn't get out." Only I don't think,' Alice went on, 'that they'd let Dinah stop in 
the house if it began ordering people about like that!'