the Queen to-day?”
“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been
invited yet.”
“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to
queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it
had been, it suddenly appeared again.
“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly
forgotten to ask.”
“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if the Cat
had come back in a natural way.
“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.
Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it
did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
direction in which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen
hatters before,” she said to herself: “the March Hare will be much
the most interesting, and perhaps, as this is May, it wo’n’t be
raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.” As she said
this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
branch of a tree.
“Did you say ‘pig’, or ‘fig’?” said the Cat.
“I said ‘pig’,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep
appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite
slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the
grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice;
“but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw
in all my life!”
She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the
house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house,
because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like
to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of
mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she
walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it
should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see theshould be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the
Hatter instead!”There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house,
and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse
was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using
it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its
head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only
as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded
together at one corner of it. “No room! No room!” they cried out
when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice
indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of
the table.
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging
tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it
but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice
angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,”
said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice: “it’s laid for a
great many more than three.”
“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking
at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first
speech.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with
some severity: “it’s very rude.”
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he
said was “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad
they’ve begun asking riddles—I believe I can guess that,” she added
aloud.
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?”
said the March Hare.
“Exactly so,” said Alice.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I
say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as
well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I
see’!”well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I
see’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I
like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to
be talking in its sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same
thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”
“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while
Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and
writing-desks, which wasn’t much.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the
month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out
of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now
and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.”
“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t
suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare.
“It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.
“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter
grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.”
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he
dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could
think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the
best butter, you know.”
Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity.
“What a funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month,
and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”
“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you
what year it is?”
“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because
it stays the same year for such a long time together.”
“Which is just the case with mine,” said the Hatter.
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to her
to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.
“I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she
could.