Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

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.