Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.  She felt
that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she
was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:  did you ever eat a
bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

  Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a
moment:  she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her
was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
sight, hurrying down it.  There was not a moment to be lost:
away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it
say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
it's getting!'  She was close behind it when she turned the
corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen:  she found
herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
hanging from the roof.

  There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked;
and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the
other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
wondering how she was ever to get out again.

  Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key,
and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the
doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or
the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of
them.  However, on the second time round, she came upon a low
curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little
door about fifteen inches high:  she tried the little golden key
in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

  Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small
passage, not much larger than a rat-hole:  she knelt down and
looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about
among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
she could not even get her head through the doorway; `and even if
my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of
very little use without my shoulders.  Oh, how I wish
I could shut up like a telescope!  I think I could, if I only
know how to begin.'  For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
things indeed were really impossible.

  There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she
went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on
it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like
telescopes:  this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which
certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck
of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME'
beautifully printed on it in large letters.

  It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little
Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry.  `No, I'll look
first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not';
for she had read several nice little histories about children who
had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant
things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules
their friends had taught them:  such as, that a red-hot poker
will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your
finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
`poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or
later.

  However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured
to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort
of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished
it off.

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  `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up
like a telescope.'

  And so it was indeed:  she was now only ten inches high, and
her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right
size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was
going to shrink any further:  she felt a little nervous about
this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my
going out altogether, like a candle.  I wonder what I should be
like then?'  And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is
like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember
ever having seen such a thing.

  After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided
on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice!
when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the
little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it,
she found she could not possibly reach it:  she could see it
quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb