Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to himself: "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall be too late!" But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, Alice started to her feet, for she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after him, just in time to see him pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after him.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so that Alice found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well. Down, down, down. Then suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
The White Rabbit was still in sight, and away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear him say, as he turned a corner, "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it is getting!" She turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen. She found herself in a long narrow hall, which was lit up by lamps hanging from the roof.
In the hall she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key. Behind a low curtain, she came upon 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 knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. But she could not even get her head through the doorway.
So she went back to the table, half hoping she might find 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 in large letters. Alice tasted it, and very soon finished it off.
"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 soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table. She opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words EAT ME were beautifully marked in currants.
She very soon finished off the cake.
"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was. Good-by feet!"
Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall; in fact, she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key, and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! To get through was more hopeless than ever. She sat down and began to cry, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her.
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other. He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh, the Duchess! the Duchess!"
Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a timid voice: "If you please, sir -"
The Rabbit started violently, dropped the gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.
"Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! How puzzling it all is!" But presently on looking down at her hands, she was surprised to see that she had put on one of the rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking.
"How can I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small again."
She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether. Now she hastened to the little door, but alas, it was shut again. "I declare it's too bad, that it is!" she said aloud, and just as she spoke her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. It was the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet high!
