he 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; "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 could
shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew 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 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.

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 stories 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, pineapple, roast turkey, coffee, 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: s