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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.

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