A very curious thing happened to me at half-past four, yesterday. Three
visitors came knocking at my door, begging me to let them in. And when
I opened the door, who do you think they were?
You’ll never guess.
Why, they were three cats! Wasn’t it curious? However, they all looked
so cross and disagreeable that I took up the first thing I could lay
my hand on (which happened to be the rolling pin) and knocked them all
down as flat as pancakes!
“If _you_ come knocking at my door,” I said, “I shall come knocking at
your heads.”
That was fair, wasn’t it?
Of course I didn’t leave them lying flat on the ground, like dried
flowers: no, I picked them up, and I was as kind as I could be to
them. I lent them the portfolio for a bed--they wouldn’t have been
comfortable in a real bed, you know: they were too thin--but they were
_quite_ happy between the sheets of blotting paper--and each of them
had a pen-wiper for a pillow. Well, then I went to bed: but first I
lent them the three dinner-bells to ring if they wanted anything in the
night.
You know I have _three_ dinner-bells--the first (which is the largest)
is rung when dinner is _nearly_ ready; the second (which is rather
larger) is rung when it is quite ready; and the third (which is as
large as the other two put together) is rung all the time I am at
dinner. And I told them they must ring if they happened to want
anything. And, as they rung _all_ the bells _all_ night, I suppose they
did want something or other, only I was too sleepy to attend to them.
[Illustration]
In the morning I gave them some rat-tail jelly and buttered mice for
breakfast and they were as discontented as they could be. And, do you
know, when I had gone out for a walk, they got _all_ my books out of
the bookcase, and opened them on the floor to be ready for me to
read. They opened them at page 50, because they thought that would be
a nice useful page to begin at. It was rather unfortunate, though:
because they took my bottle of gum and tried to gum pictures upon the
ceiling (which they thought would please me). They accidentally spilt
a quantity of it all over the books. So when they were shut up and put
by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again
in any of them!
However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn’t angry. I gave them each
a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that and
made the most dreadful faces. But, of course, as it was given them for
a treat, they had to drink it. One of them has turned black since: it
was a white cat to begin with.
They wanted some boiled pelican, but, of course, I knew it wouldn’t
be good for them. So all I said was “Go to Agnes Hughes, and if it’s
_really_ good for you she’ll give you some.”
Then I shook hands with them all, and wished them good-bye, and drove
them up the chimney. They seemed very sorry to go.
[29] This fascinating little fantasy ran through a series of letters
which Lewis Carroll wrote to two little friends of his named Agnes
and Amy Hughes. Without altering a word of the original and merely
by extracting the extraneous matter, the editor has been able to
reproduce the complete story, and to present what is, in effect, a new
“wonder-tale” in miniature by the author of “Alice in Wonderland,”
which, in his opinion, is in his best and most characteristic vein.