Advice from a Caterpillar
Peeping over a mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. At length, in a sleepy sort of way, it began talking to her, and she told it what she wanted so much - to grow to her right size again.
"Three inches" she said, "is such a wretched height to be."
"It is a very good height indeed," said the Caterpillar angrily, (it was exactly three inches high).
"You'll get used to it in time," said the Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
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."
"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 broke off a bit of the edge with each hand, 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 managed to swallow a morsel of the left-hand bit. The next minute she had grown so tall that her neck rose like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves, and these green leaves were the trees of the wood. But, by nibbling bits of mushroom, she at last succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. But, oh dear, in order to get into the first house she saw, she had to eat some more of the mushroom from her right hand and bring herself down to nine inches. Outside the house she saw a Fish-footmen and a Frog-footmen with invitations from the Queen to the Duchess, asking her to play croquet. The Duchess lived in the house, and a terrible noise was going on inside, and when the door was opened a plate came crashing out. But Alice got in at last, and found the Duchess and her cook quarrelling because there was too much pepper in the soup.
The Duchess had the baby in her lap, and tossed it about ridiculously, finally throwing it in the most heartless way to Alice. She took it out of doors, and behold, it turned into a little pig, jumped out of her arms, and ran away into the wood.
"If it had grown up," she said, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think."
She was a little startled now by seeing a Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough of a tree. The Cat grinned when it saw Alice. She felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
"Cheshire Puss," she said, "what sort of people live about here?"
"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter; and in that direction" - waving the other paw - "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they're both mad."
