Adventures in Wonderland Say It Again Maam
CHAPTER I
Downwards the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sis on the banking concern, and of having cypher to do: one time 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 conversation?'So she was considering in her ain mind (equally well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink optics ran shut by her.
There was zippo so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice call back it and then very much out of the manner to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh beloved! I shall exist late!' (when she thought it over afterward, it occurred to her that she ought to take wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); just when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and so hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of information technology, and called-for with curiosity, she ran across the field later it, and fortunately was just in time to run into it popular down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
White Rabbit checking watch
In another moment down went Alice after information technology, never in one case considering how in the earth she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly downwardly, then suddenly that Alice had non a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling downwardly a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time every bit she went down to look almost her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to expect downwards and make out what she was coming to, just it was too nighttime to meet annihilation; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', simply to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fright of killing somebody, so managed to put information technology into one of the cupboards as she brutal past it.
`Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall equally this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How dauntless they'll all retrieve me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything almost it, fifty-fifty if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very probable true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an finish! `I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud. `I must exist getting somewhere near the centre of the world. Let me see: that would exist four 1000 miles downwards, I recollect--' (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as at that place was no one to listen to her, nevertheless it was practiced practice to say it over) `--yes, that's virtually the right altitude--but so I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but idea they were prissy grand words to say.)
Before long she began again. `I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I recollect--' (she was rather glad there was no 1 listening, this time, as information technology didn't sound at all the right give-and-take) `--merely I shall accept to ask them what the proper noun of the state is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Commonwealth of australia?' (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke--fancy curtseying as yous're falling through the air! Do you lot think y'all could manage information technology?) `And what an ignorant little girl she'll recollect me for asking! No, it'll never practice to ask: perhaps I shall meet it written up somewhere.'
Downwardly, downwardly, downwardly. There was zero else to do, so Alice soon began talking once again. `Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!' (Dinah was the cat.) `I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, y'all know. Merely do cats eat bats, I wonder?' And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on proverb to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, `Do cats consume bats? Practice cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do bats consume cats?' for, you run across, every bit she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much affair 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 swallow a bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was non a flake hurt, and she jumped upwards on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all night overhead; earlier her was some other 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, just the Rabbit was no longer to exist seen: she found herself in a long, depression hall, which was lit up past a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
At that place were doors all circular the hall, just they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the manner downwardly i side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly downward the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little 3-legged tabular array, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden primal, and Alice's commencement thought was that it might belong to i of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the fundamental was too small, but at any charge per unit 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 nearly fifteen inches high: she tried the little aureate key in the lock, and to her great delight information technology fitted!
Alice finding tiny door behind pall
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a pocket-size passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden yous ever saw. How she longed to get out of that night hall, and wander most among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not fifty-fifty go her head though the doorway; `and even if my caput would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of very lilliputian use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut upward like a telescope! I retrieve I could, if I merely know how to begin.' For, yous 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 employ in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the tabular array, one-half hoping she might find another cardinal on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this fourth dimension she found a little bottle on information technology, (`which certainly was not hither before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `Drinkable ME' beautifully printed on it in big letters.
Alice taking "Drink Me" bottle
Information technology was all very well to say `Beverage me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to practise that in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and come across whether information technology'south marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice piffling histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not recollect the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if y'all concord information technology too long; and that if you cutting your finger very deeply with a knife, information technology usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poisonous substance,' information technology is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.
All the same, this canteen was not marked `poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (information technology had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of red-tart, custard, pine-apple tree, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *`What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting upward similar a telescope.'
And so it was indeed: she was at present only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the idea that she was now the correct size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to run into 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 exist 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 naught more than 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 gold central, and when she went back to the tabular array for it, she constitute she could not possibly attain information technology: she could run across it quite obviously through the glass, and she tried her best to climb upwards one of the legs of the table, only it was as well slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
`Come up, there'southward no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather sharply; `I advise y'all to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her ain ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. `But it's no utilise at present,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there's inappreciably enough of me left to make one respectable person!'
Shortly her eye fell on a piffling glass box that was lying nether the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words `Consume ME' were beautifully marked in currants. `Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, `and if it makes me abound larger, I tin can accomplish the fundamental; and if it makes me grow smaller, I tin pitter-patter under the door; then either style I'll get into the garden, and I don't intendance which happens!'
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which mode? Which way?', holding her manus on the top of her head to experience which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to notice that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when ane eats cake, simply Alice had got so much into the manner of expecting nothing just out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Next chapter: The Pool of Tears
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Source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-I.html
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