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It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking anxiously around, as if it had lost something. Alice heard it muttering to itself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh dear! She'll have me executed, for sure! Where did I drop them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white gloves and she very good-naturedly began looking for them but they were nowhere to be seen. Everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool of tears and the great hall with the glass table and the little door had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice and called 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!"

"He thinks I'm his maid!" said Alice, as she ran off. "How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!" As she said this, she arrived at a neat little house. On the front door there was a bright brass plate with the name "W. RABBIT" engraved on it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs, scared that she might meet the real Mary Ann and be thrown out of the house before she had found the fan and the gloves.

By this time, Alice had found her way into a tidy little room with a table at the window. On the table there were a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white gloves. She picked up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room when she saw a little bottle near the mirror. She uncorked it and put it to her lips, saying to herself, "I really hope it'll make me grow large again because I'm tired of being so small!"

Before she had drunk half the bottle, she felt her head pressing against the ceiling and had to stoop to stop her neck from being broken. She quickly put down the bottle and said, "That's enough. I hope I won't grow any more."

Alas! It was too late to wish that! She continued growing and growing and very soon she had to kneel down on the floor. Still she continued growing and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney and said to herself, "Now there's nothing else I can do. What's going to happen to me?"

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

Then 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. Alice heard it say to itself, "Then I'll go outside and get in through the window."

"Oh no you won't!" thought Alice and after waiting until she heard the Rabbit outside the window, she suddenly stretched 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 maybe the Rabbit had fallen into a cucumber-frame or something like that.

Next came an angry Rabbit voice, "Pat! Pat! Where are you?" And then a voice she had never heard before.

"I'm here! Digging for apples, Your Honour!"

"Come here and help me out of this! Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?"

"It's an arm, Your Honour!"

"Well, it shouldn't be there. Go and take it away!"

There was a long silence after this and Alice could only hear whispers now and then, and at last she stretched out her hand again and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks and more sounds of broken glass. "I wonder what they'll do next!" thought Alice. "As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could!"

She waited for some time without hearing anything more. At last came a rumbling of little cart wheels and the sound of a lot of voices all talking together. She made out the words, "Where's the other ladder? Bill's got the other ladder. Hey, Bill! Over here. Will the roof hold? Who's going down the chimney? Not me! You do it! Hey, Bill! The master says you've got to go down the chimney!"

Alice pulled back her foot as far down the chimney as she could and waited until she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling about in the chimney just above her. Then she gave one sharp kick and waited to see what happened next.

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of "There goes Bill!". Then the Rabbit's voice, "Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then silence and then another confusion of voices. "Hold up his head. Give him some brandy. Don't choke him. What happened to you?"

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, "Well, I'm not sure. No more brandy, thank you. I'm better now. All I know is, something hit me like a Jack-in-the-box and up I go like a rocket!"

After a minute or two of silence, they began moving about again and Alice heard the Rabbit say, "A barrowful will do, to begin with."

"A barrowful of what?" thought Alice. But she didn't have to wait long to find out. The next moment a shower of little pebbles hit the window and some of them hit her in the face. Alice noticed, with some surprise, that the pebbles which had landed on the floor were all turning into little cakes. Alice had a bright idea. "If I eat one of these cakes," she thought, "I'm sure it will change my size."

So, Alice swallowed one of the cakes and was delighted to find that she started shrinking immediately. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house and found a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. They all rushed at Alice the second she appeared but she ran away as fast as she could go and soon found herself safe in a thick forest.

"The first thing I have to do," said Alice to herself, as she wandered around the wood, "is to grow to my right size again. And the second thing I have to do is to find my way into that lovely garden. I suppose I need to eat or drink something but the great question is 'What?'"

Alice looked all around her at the flowers and the blades of grass but she could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her about the same height as herself. She stretched herself up on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar. It was sitting on the top, with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hubble-bubble and it completely ignored her.