this; “for it might end, you know,” said Alice to herself,

“in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be

like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like

after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such

a thing.


After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going 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 legs

of the table, 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 into 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 grow 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