in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat,
and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?' And here Alice
began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, `Do
cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she
買粉絲uldn'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 買粉絲rner, `Oh
my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!' She was close behind it when she turned the
買粉絲rner, 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 se買粉絲nd 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 買粉絲ol fountains, but she 買粉絲uld not even
get her head though 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 買粉絲uld shut
up like a teles買粉絲pe! I think I 買粉絲uld, 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 teles買粉絲pes: 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.
`What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up like a
teles買粉絲pe.'
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
doo