The Complete Novels of Lewis Carroll (Illustrated Edition). Lewis Carroll

      3.

      "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?"

      4.

      "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,

      "I kept all my limbs very supple,

      By the use of this ointment, five shillings the box—

      Allow me to sell you a couple."

      5.

      "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

      For anything tougher than suet:

      Yet you eat all the goose, with the bones and the beak—

      Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

      6.

      "In my youth," said the old man, "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."

      7.

      "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?"

      8.

      "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."

      "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 loudly and angrily, rearing itself straight up 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 to 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 quietly until it chose to speak again: in a few minutes the caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went; "the top will make you grow taller, and the stalk will make you grow shorter."

      "The top of what? the stalk of what?" thought Alice.

      "Of the mushroom," said the caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud, and in another moment was out of sight.

      Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, and then picked it and carefully broke it in two, taking the stalk in one hand, and the top in the other.

      "Which does the stalk do?" she said, and nibbled a little bit of it to try; the next moment she felt a violent blow on her chin: it had struck her foot!

      She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but as she did not shrink any further, and had not dropped the top of the mushroom, she did not give up hope yet. There was hardly room to open her mouth, with her chin pressing against her foot, but she did it at last, and managed to bite off a little bit of the top of the mushroom.

      "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 seen: she looked down upon 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 ca'n't see you?" She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little rustling among the leaves. Then she tried to bring her head down to her hands, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in every direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in bending it down in a beautiful zig-zag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be the tops of the trees of the wood she had been wandering in, when a sharp hiss made her draw back: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was violently beating her with its wings.

      "Serpent!" screamed the pigeon.

      "I'm not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly, "let me alone!"

      "I've tried every way!" the pigeon said desperately, with a kind of sob: "nothing seems to suit 'em!"

      "I haven't the least idea what you mean," 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 them serpents! There's no pleasing 'em!"

      Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything till the pigeon had finished.

      "As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs!" said the pigeon, "without being on the look out for serpents, day and night! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!"

      "I'm very sorry you've been annoyed," said Alice, beginning to see its meaning.

      "And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," said the pigeon raising its voice to a shriek, "and was just thinking I was free of 'em at last, they must needs come down from the sky! Ugh! Serpent!"

      "But I'm not a serpent," said Alice, "I'm a—I'm a—"

      "Well! What are you?" said the pigeon, "I 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.

      "A likely story indeed!" said the pigeon, "I've seen a good many of them in my time, but never one with such a neck as yours! No, you're a serpent, I know that well enough! I suppose you'll tell me next that you never tasted an egg!"

      "I have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who was a very truthful child, "but indeed I do'n't want any of yours. I do'n't like them raw."

      "Well, be off, then!" said the pigeon, and settled down into its nest again. Alice crouched down among the trees, as well as she could, as her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and several times she had to stop and untwist it. Soon she remembered the pieces