ich), and they went on for some while in silence.

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, "Now, what am I to do
with this creature when I get it home?" when it grunted again, so
violently that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time
there could be _no_ mistake about it: it was neither more nor less
than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to
carry it any further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it
trot away quietly into the wood. "If it had grown up," she said to
herself, "it would have been a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes
rather a handsome pig, I think." And she began thinking over other
children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying
to herself, "If one only knew the right way to change them--" when she
was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of
a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she
thought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she
felt it ought to be treated with respect.

"Cheshire Puss," she began,--rather timidly, as she did not at all
know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little
wider. "Come, it's pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where--" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.

"--so long as I get _somewhere_," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long
enough."

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
question. "What sort of people live about here?"

"In _that_ direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
"lives a Hatter; and in _that_ direction," waving the other paw,
"lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we are all mad here. I'm
mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on, "And
how do you know that you're mad?"

"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said A