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&rs............