Would you like to know what happened to Alice, after she had got away from the Puppy? It was far too large an animal, you know, for her to play with. I don't suppose you would much enjoy playing with a young Hippopotamus, would you? You would always be expecting to be crushed as flat as a pancake under its great heavy feet! So Alice was very glad to run away, while it wasn't looking.

Well, she wandered up and down, and didn't know what in the world to do, to make herself grow up to her right size again. Of course she knew that she had

to eat or drink something: that was the regular rule, you know: but she couldn't guess what thing. Alice looking at the blue caterpillar sitting on a mushroom

However, she soon came to a great mushroom, that was so tall that she couldn't see over the top of it without standing on tip-toe. And what do you think she saw? Something that I'm sure you never talked to, in all your life!

It was a large Blue Caterpillar. I'll tell you, soon, what Alice and the Caterpillar

talked about: but first let us have a good look at the picture.

That curious thing, standing in front of the Caterpillar, is called a "hookah": and it's used for smoking. The smoke comes through that long tube, that winds round and round like a serpent.And do you see its long nose and chin? At least, they look exactly like a nose and chin, don't they? But they really are two of its legs. You know a Caterpillar has got quantities of legs: you can see some more of them, further down. What a bother it must be to a Caterpillar, counting over such a lot of legs, every night, to make sure it hasn't lost any of them! And another great bother must be, having to settle which leg it had better move first. I think, if you had forty or fifty legs, and if you wanted to go a walk, you'd be such a time in settling which

leg to begin with, that you'd never go a walk at all! And what did Alice and the

Caterpillar talk about, I wonder?Well, Alice told it how very confusing it was, being

first one size and then another. And the Caterpillar asked her if she liked the size

she was, just then. And Alice said she would like to be just a little bit larger-three inches was such a wretched height to be! And the Caterpillar told her one side of the mushroom would make her grow taller, and the other side would make her grow shorter. So Alice took two little bits of it with her to nibble, and managed to make herself quite a nice comfortable height, before she went on to visit the Duchess.

你们想不想知道，爱丽丝从狗娃身边逃走后又遇到什么事情？你们瞧，对于小不点儿爱丽丝来说，狗娃的个头实在太大，不是一个合适的玩伴。（我猜想，你们不喜欢跟小河马玩耍，对不对？因为你们时刻都在提心吊胆，唯恐它那沉重的大脚丫把你们踩成肉饼！）所以，趁着小狗娃不注意的时候，爱丽丝赶紧溜之大吉。她东游游，西逛逛，不知道怎样才能恢复自己正常的身高。当然，她知道自己必须吃点儿什么，或者喝点儿什么。因为那是发生变化的必要条件，只是她猜不出来，应该吃喝点儿什么才好很快，她来到了一株大蘑菇跟前。蘑菇很高，她必须踮起脚尖，才能够看到蘑菇伞的上面。你们猜，她看到什么啦？我相信，你们长这么大，从来都没有跟那种生物交谈过！那是一条很大的蓝色毛毛虫。马上，我就会告诉你们，爱丽丝和毛毛虫都谈了些什么。不过，首先让我们好好地看一下这张图片。毛毛虫前边那个怪怪的东西叫水烟筒，是用来抽烟的。从那根长管子里喷出来的烟雾，能够像蛇一般盘旋成一个个烟圈儿。你们看见毛毛虫的下巴颏和长鼻子了吗？那些至少看起来很像鼻子和下巴，对吧？其实，那是毛毛虫的两条腿。要知道，毛毛虫有很多条腿，你们只能够看到其中的一部分。做一个毛毛虫可真够麻烦的，每天晚上都要数点那么多条腿，好知道自己的腿有没有丢失一条！另外一件让人头痛的事，应该是决定走路时先迈哪一条腿我想，如果你有四十或者五十条腿，每次外出都要决定先迈哪一条腿的话，你将永远也无法走出房门！我十分好奇，想要知道爱丽丝和毛毛虫都聊了些什么？哦，爱丽丝告诉毛 毛虫说，像这样一-会儿变大，一会儿变小，真让她感到不知所措。毛毛虫问她喜欢不喜欢自己现在的身高。爱丽丝回答说，她希望自己能够变大一点儿，因为三英寸的身高简直太令人难堪了！

毛毛虫告诉她，蘑菇的某个部分可以使她变大，另外的部分可以使她变小。

于是，爱丽丝在两只手上各拿了一些蘑菇，她先在这边咬上一口，然后又在那边啃上一点儿。终于，在去拜访公爵夫人之前，她恢复了自己正常的身高。