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 punished 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 today.'
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?
Everything 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 trying.' So she began:
`O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool?
I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'