Page:Alice's adventures in Wonderland - (IA alicesadventures00carr 21).djvu/45

Rh "It is wrong from first to last," said the Cat-er-pil-lar; then did not speak for some time. At last it said, "What size do you want to be?"

"Oh, I don't care so much as to size, but one does'nt like to change so much, you know."

"I don't know," it said.

Al-ice was too much vexed to speak, for she had nev-er, in all her life, been talked to in that rude way.

"Do you like your size now?" asked the Cat-er-pil-lar.

"Well, I'm not quite so large as I would like to be," said Al-ice; "three inch-es is such a wretch-ed height to be."

"It is a good height, in-deed!" said the Cat-er-pil-lar, and reared it-self up straight as it spoke. (It was just three inch-es high.)

"But I'm not used to it!" plead-ed poor Al-ice. And she thought, "I wish the things wouldn't be so ea-sy to get mad!"

"You'll get used to it in time," the Cat-er-pil-lar said, and put the pipe to its mouth, and Al-ice wait-ed till it should choose to speak. At last it took the pipe from its mouth, yawned once or twice, then got down from its perch and crawled off in the grass. As it went it said, "One side will make you tall, and one side will make you small.

"One side of what?" thought Al-ice to her-self.

"Of the mush-room," said the Cat-er-pil-lar, just as if it had heard her speak; soon it was out of sight.

Al-ice stood and looked at the mush-room a long time