to
go into the garden at once, but, alas for poor Alice! when she got
to the door she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and
when she went back to the table for it she found she could not
possibly reach it. She could see it quite plainly through the
glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the table-legs,
but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with
trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

"Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself,
rather sharply. "I advise you 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 in her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her
own 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 use now," thought poor
Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of
me left to make _one_ respectable person!"

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. "Well, I'll
eat it," said Alice, "and if it makes me larger I can reach the
key, and if it makes me smaller I can creep under the door; so,
either way, I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which
happens!"

She ate a little bit and said anxiously to herself, "Which way?
Which way?" holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which
way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she
remained the same size. To be sure, this generally happens when one
eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting
nothing but 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.

* * * * *

THE POOL OF TEARS

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised
that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English);
"now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was!
Good-by, feet!" (for when she looked