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.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * *
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
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