serpent?'

  `It matters a good deal to ME,' said Alice hastily; `but I'm

not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't

want YOURS:  I don't like them raw.'

  `Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it

settled down again into its nest.  Alice crouched down among the

trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled

among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and

untwist it.  After a while she remembered that she still held the

pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very

carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and

growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had

succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

  It was so long since she had been anything near the right size,

that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a

few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual.  `Come,

there's half my plan done now!  How puzzling all these changes

are!  I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to

another!  However, I've got back to my right size:  the next

thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to be

done, I wonder?'  As she said this, she came suddenly upon an

open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.

`Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, `it'll never do to come

upon them THIS size:  why, I should frighten them out of their

wits!'  So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did

not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself

down to nine inches high.

                           CHAPTER VI

                         Pig and Pepper

  For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and

wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came

running out of the wood--(she considered him to be a footman

because he was in livery:  otherwise, judging by his face only,

she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door

with his knuckles.  It was opened by another footman in livery,

with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen,

Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their

heads.  She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and

crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

  The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great ()