Alices Adventures in Wonderland | Page 6

larger, I can reach the key;
and if it makes me grow 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.
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CHAPTER II
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-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her feet, they
seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I
wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I shan't be
able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the
best way you can; --but I must be kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't
walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every
Christmas.'
And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. `They must go by the
carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And
how odd the directions will look!
ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH ALICE'S
LOVE).
Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'
Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine
feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into
the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down
and began to cry again.
`You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great girl like you,' (she might well
say this), `to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four
inches deep and reaching half down the hall.
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her
eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with
a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along
in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh!
won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to
ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice,
`If you please, sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the
fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself
all the time she went on talking: `Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And
yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me
think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling
a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah,
THAT'S the great puzzle!' And she began thinking over all the children she knew that
were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
`I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't
go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
oh! she knows such a very