The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Read Free Book Online Page A

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 ca’n’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!”
    “Ca’n’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 all 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 into 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