Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

								

they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear, I wish
you were down here with me!" Alice felt that she was dozing off, 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 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 table, all made of solid glass. There
was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that
this 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. "Oh," said Alice, "how I wish I could shut up like a telescope!
I think I could, if I only knew how to begin."
Alice 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 tied 'round the neck of the
bottle was a paper label, with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed
on it in large letters.
"No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison'
or not," for she had never forgotten that, if you drink 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 a sort of mixed flavor of
cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy and hot buttered
toast), she very soon finished it off.



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