won't you?
- Not a bit, - said the Caterpillar.
- Well, perhaps your feelings may be different, - said Alice; - all I
know is, it would feel very queer to ME.
- You! - said the Caterpillar contemptuously. - Who are YOU? Which
brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a
little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such VERY short remarks, and
she drew herself up and said, very gravely, - I think, you out to tell me
who YOU are, first.
- Why? - said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question;
and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar
seemed to be in a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
- Come back! - the Caterpillar called after her. - I've something
important to say!
This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.
- Keep your temper, - said the Caterpillar. - Is that all? - said Alice,
swallowing down her anger as well as she could.
- No, - said the Caterpillar. Alice thought she might as well wait,
as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her
something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking,
but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again,
and said,
- So you think you're changed, do you? - I'm afraid I am, sir, - said
Alice; - I can't remember things as I used - and I don't keep the same
size for ten minutes together!
- Can't remember WHAT things? - said the Caterpillar.
- Well, I've tried to say - HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE, - but it
all came different! - Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
- Repeat, - YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM, - said the Caterpillar.
Alice folded her hands, and began:
- You are old, Father William, - the young man said, - And your hair
has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head
Do you think, at your age, it is right?
- In my youth, - Father William replied to his son, - I feared it
might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.
- You are old, - said the youth, - as I mentioned before, And have
grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door
Pray, what is the reason of that?
- In my youth, - said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, - I kept
all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box
Allow me to sell you a couple?
- You are old, - said the youth, - and your jaws are too weak For
anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak
Pray how did you manage to do it?
- In my youth, - said his father, - I took to the law, And argued
each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.
- You are old, - said the youth, - one would hardly suppose That your
eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose
What made you so awfully clever?
- I have answered three questions, and that is enough, Said his
father; - don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!
- That is not said right, - said the Caterpillar.
- Not QUITE right, I'm afraid, - said Alice, timidly; some of the
words have got altered.
- It is wrong from beginning to end, - said the Caterpillar
decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
The Caterpillar was the first to speak. - What size do you want to
be? - it asked. - Oh, I'm not particular as to size, - Alice hastily
replied; - only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.
- I DON'T know, - said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing: she had
never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she
was losing her temper.
- Are you content now? - said the Caterpillar.
- Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you wouldn't
mind, - said Alice: - three inches is such a wretched height to be.
- It is a very good height indeed! - said the Caterpillar angrily,
rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).
- But I'm not used to it! - pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And
she thought of herself, - I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily
offended!
- You'll get used to it in time, - said the Caterpillar; and it put
the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a
minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned
once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and
crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went,
- One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make
you grow shorter.
- One side of WHAT? The other side of WHAT? - thought Alice to
herself.
- Of the mushroom, - said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked
it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute,
trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly
round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she
stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit
of the edge with each hand.
- And now which is which? - she said to herself, and nibbled a little
of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a
violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she
felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so
she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed
so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth;
but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand
bit.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * *
- Come, my head's free at last! - said Alice in a tone of delight,
which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her
shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked
down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out
of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.
- What CAN all that green stuff be? - said Alice. - And where HAVE my
shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you? She
was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except
a little shaking among the distant green leaves.
As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head,
she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her
neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had
just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to
dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of
the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her
draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was
beating her violently with its wings.
- Serpent! - screamed the Pigeon.
- I'm NOT a serpent! - said Alice indignantly. - Let me alone!
- Serpent, I say again! - repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued
tone, and added with a kind of sob, - I've tried every way, and nothing
seems to suit them!
- I haven't the least idea what you're talking about, - said Alice.
- I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried
hedges, - the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; - but those
serpents! There's no pleasing them!
Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in
saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.
- As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs, - said the
Pigeon; - but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I
haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!
- I'm very sorry you've been annoyed, - said Alice, who was beginning
to see its meaning.
- And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood, - continued the
Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, - and just as I was thinking I
should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from
the sky! Ugh, Serpent!
- But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you! - said Alice. - I'm a - I'm a
- Well! WHAT are you? - said the Pigeon. - I can see you're trying to
invent something!
- I - I'm a little girl, - said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she
remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.
- A likely story indeed! - said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest
contempt. - I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never ONE
with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use
denying it. I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an
egg!
- I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly, - said Alice, who was a very
truthful child; - but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do,
you know.
- I don't believe it, - said the Pigeon; - but if they do, why then
they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.
This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a
minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding,
- You're looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and what does it
matter to me whether you're a little girl or a serpent?
- It matters a good deal to ME, - said Alice hastily; - but I'm not
looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't want YOURS: I
don't like them raw.
- Well, be off, then! - said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it
settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as
well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches,
and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she
remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and
she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the
other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.
It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that
it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes,
and began talking to herself, as usual. - Come, there's half my plan done
now! How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to
be, from one minute to another! However, I've got back to my right size:
the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden - how IS that to be
done, I wonder? - As she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place,
with a little house in it about four feet high. - Whoever lives there, -
thought Alice, - it'll never do to come upon them THIS size: why, I should
frighten them out of their wits! - So she began nibbling at the righthand
bit again, and did not venture to go near the house till she had brought
herself down to nine inches high.
CHAPTER VI
Pig and Pepper
For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering
what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the
wood - (she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery:
otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish) -
