“It’s no use swearing and humping your back,” said the Cat sympathetically. (Alice hadn’t done either.) “Keep your temper and your flamingo.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” said the Cat; “keep on playing with the right ball.”
“Which is the right ball?” asked Alice.
But the Cat had discreetly vanished.
ALICE AT ST. STEPHEN’S
“It’s very provoking,” said Alice to herself; she had been trying for the previous quarter of an hour to attract the attention of a large and very solemn caterpillar that was perched on the top of a big mushroom with a Gothic fringe. “I’ve heard that the only chance of speaking to it is to catch its eye,” she continued, but she found out that however perseveringly she thrust herself into the Caterpillar’s range of vision its eye persistently looked beyond her, or beneath her, or around her—never at her. Alice had read somewhere that little girls should be seen and not heard; “but,” she thought, “I’m not even seen here, and if I’m not to be heard, what am I here at all for?” In any case she determined to make an attempt at conversation.
“If you please——” she began.
“I don’t,” said the Caterpillar shortly, without seeming to take any further notice of her.
After an uncomfortable pause she commenced again.