"'In my youth,' said his fath-er, 'I took to the law
And ar-gued each case with my wife;
And the ver-y great strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has last-ed the rest of my life.'
"'You are old,' said the youth; 'one would hard-ly sup-pose
That your eye was as stead-y as ev-er;
Yet you bal-ance an eel on the end of your nose—
What makes you al-ways so clev-er?'
"'I have re-plied to three ques-tions, and that is e-nough,'
Said the fath-er; 'don't give your-self airs!
Do you think I can lis-ten all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down-stairs!'"
"That is not said right," said the Cat-er-pil-lar.
"Not quite right, I fear," said Al-ice, "some of the words are changed."
"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.