Chapter 4: An Advice from the Snail🫧🐌

Q and F looked at each other for some time in silence: at last Q took the hookah out of his mouth, and addressed him in a languid, sleepy voice.

“Who are you?” said Q.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. F replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Q, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

"What do you mean by that?” said Q sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Q,” said F, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

“I don’t see,” said Q.

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Q replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”

“It isn’t,” said Q.

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said F; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?”

“Not a bit,” said Q.

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Q; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”

“You!” said Q contemptuously. “Who are you?”

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. F felt a little irritated at Q’s making such very short remarks, and he drew himself up and said, very gravely, “I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.”

"Why?" said Q.

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said F; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”

“You!” said Q contemptuously. “Who are you?”

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. F felt a little irritated at the Q’s making such very short remarks, and he drew himself up and said, very gravely, “I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.”

“Why?” said Q.

Here was another puzzling question; and as F could not think of any good reason, and as Q seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, he turned away.

“Come back!” Q called after him. “I’ve something important to say!”

This sounded promising, certainly: F turned and came back again.

“Keep your temper,” said Q.

“Is that all?” said F, swallowing down his anger as well as he could.

“No,” said Q.

F thought he might as well wait, as he had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell him something worth hearing. For some minutes he puffed away without speaking, but at last he unfolded his arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you think you’re changed, do you?”

“I’m afraid I am, Q,” said F; “I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!”

“Can’t remember what things?” said Q.

“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all came different!” F replied in a very melancholy voice.

“Repeat, “You are old, Father William,’” said Q.

F folded his hands, and began:—

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,     “And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head—     Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,     “I feared it might injure the brain;But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,     Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,     And have grown most uncommonly fat;Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—     Pray, what is the reason of that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,     “I kept all my limbs very suppleBy the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—     Allow me to sell you a couple?”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak     For anything tougher than suet;Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—     Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,     And argued each case with my wife;And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,     Has lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose     That your eye was as steady as ever;Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—     What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”     Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?     Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!”

That is not said right,” said Q.

“Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said F, timidly; “some of the words have got altered.”

“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said Q decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.

Q was the first to speak.

“What size do you want to be?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” F hastily replied; “only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.”

I don’t know,” said Q.

F said nothing: he had never been so much contradicted in his life before, and he felt that he was losing his temper.

“Are you content now?” said Q.

“Well, I should like to be a little larger, Q, if you wouldn’t mind,” said F: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.”

“It is a very good height indeed!” said Q angrily, rearing himself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).

“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded F in a piteous tone. And he thought of himself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!”

“You’ll get used to it in time,” said Q; and he put the hookah into his mouth and began smoking again.

This time F waited patiently until he chose to speak again. In a minute or two, Q took the hookah out of his mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook himself. Then he got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as he went, “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”

“One side of what? The other side of what?” thought F to himself.

“Of the mushroom,” said Q, just as if he had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.

F remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, he found this a very difficult question. However, at last he stretched his arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.

“And now which is which?” he said to himself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment he felt a violent blow underneath his chin: it had struck his foot!

He was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but he felt that there was no time to be lost, as he was shrinking rapidly; so he set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. His chin was pressed so closely against his foot, that there was hardly room to open his mouth; but he did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.

"Come on, my head’s free at last!” said F in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when he found that his shoulders were nowhere to be found: all he could see, when he looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below him.

“What can all that green stuff be?” said F. “And where have my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” He was moving them about as he spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves.

As there seemed to be no chance of getting his hands up to his head, he tried to get his head down to them, and was delighted to find that his neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. He had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which he found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which he had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made his draw back in a hurry.

It was so long since he had been anything near the right size, that it felt quite strange at first; but he got used to it in a few minutes, and began talking to himself, as usual. “Come on, 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 he said this, he came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. “Whoever lives there,” thought F, “it’ll never do to come upon them this size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So he began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go near the house till he had brought himself down to nine inches high.

It's about a month since I did not update this book ;-;

Stay tuned for Chapter 5..........

                                                                            °~Kholeen~°