  Recent measurements of the autocorrelation function of the Ly-alpha clouds
are analyzed from the point of view of a simple model with strong clustering on
the small scales. It is shown that this toy model reproduces fairly well the
important linear relation between amplitude of the absorber autocorrelation
function and neutral hydrogen column density. In addition, it predicts a
correct evolutionary trend of correlation amplitudes. Some possible
ramifications of these results are discussed.
