Alices Adventures Under Ground by Lewis Carroll - The Original Classic Edition Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: It was all very well to say drink me, but Ill look first, said the wise little Alice, and see whether the bottles marked poison or not, for Alice had read several nice little stories about children that got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had given them, such as, that, if you get into the fire, it will burn you, and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it generally bleeds, and[8] she had never forgotten that, if you drink a bottle marked poison, it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. ...By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room, with a table in the window on which was a looking-glass and, (as Alice had hoped,) two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up a pair of gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass: there was no label on it this time with the words drink me, but nonetheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips: I know something interesting is sure to happen, she said to herself, whenever I eat or drink anything, so Ill see what this bottle does. ...She waited for some time without[42] hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words wheres the other ladder?—why, I hadnt to bring but one, Bills got the other—here, put em up at this corner—no, tie em together first—they dont reach high enough yet—oh, theyll do well enough, dont be particular—here, Bill! ...Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy: whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, and with a yelp of delight rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it then Alice dodged behind a great thistle to keep herself from being run over, and, the moment she appeared at the other side, the puppy made another dart at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold: then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again: then the puppy begin a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.[ ...The chief difficulty which Alice found at first was to manage her ostrich: she got its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck straightened out nicely, and was going to give a blow with its head, it would twist itself round, and look up into her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very confusing to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or a furrow in her way, wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other[77] parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.