She wait-ed for some time, but all was still; at last came the noise of small cart wheels and the sound of voi-ces, from which she made out the words, "Where's the oth-er lad-der? Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the oth-er. Bill, fetch it here, lad! Here, put 'em up at this place. No, tie 'em first--they don't reach half as high as they should yet--oh, they'll do. Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear? Mind that loose slate--oh, here it comes! Look out. (A loud crash.)--Now who did that? It was Bill, I guess--Who's to go down the chim-ney? Nay, I shan't! You do it!--That I won't then!--Bill's got to go down--Here, Bill, you've got to go down the chim-ney!" "Oh, so Bill's got to come down, has he?" said Al-ice to her-self. "Why, they seem to put all the work on Bill. I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal; this fire-place is small, to be sure, but I think I can kick some." She drew her foot as far down as she could, and wait-ed till she heard a small beast (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) come scratch! scratch! down the chim-ney quite close to her; then she said to her-self: "This is Bill," gave one sharp kick and wait-ed to see what would hap-pen next. [Illustration] The first thing she heard was, "There goes Bill!" then the Rab-bit's voice, "Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then all was still, then the voices--"Hold up his head--Wine now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fel-low? What sent you up so fast? Tell us all a-bout it!" Last came a weak voice ("That's Bill," thought Al-ice), "Well, I don't know--no more, thank'ye, I'm not so weak now--but I'm a deal too shocked to tell you--all I know is, a thing comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a rocket." "So you did, old fel-low," said the oth-ers. "We must burn the house down," said the Rab-bit's voice, and Al-ice called out as loud as she could, "If you do, I'll set Di-nah at you!" At once all was still as death, and Al-ice thought, "What will they do next? If they had an-y sense, they'd take the roof off." Then she heard the Rab-bit say, "One load will do to start with." "A load of what?" thought Al-ice, but she had not long to doubt, for soon a show-er of small stones came in at the win-dow, and some of them hit her in the face. "I'll put a stop to this," she said to her-self, and shout-ed out, "You stop that, at once!" A-gain all was still as death. Al-ice saw that the stones all changed to small cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright thought came to her. "If I eat one of these cakes," she said, "it is sure to make some change in my size; and as it can't make me larg-er, I hope it will change me to the size I used to be."