“I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she
could.
“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a
little hot tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without
opening its eyes, “Of course, of course: just what I was going to
remark myself.”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to
Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better
with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that
have no answers.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you
wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head
contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied; “but I know I have to
beat time when I learn music.”
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He wo’n’t stand
beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do
almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it
were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d
only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a
twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”
(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a
whisper.)
“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but
then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”
“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it
to half-past one as long as you liked.”
“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We
quarreled last March——just before he went mad, you know——”
(pointing with his teaspoon at the March Hare,) “——it was at the
great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing
‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’
You know the song, perhaps?”‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’
You know the song, perhaps?”
“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.
“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—
"Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle——’”
Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep
“Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle——” and went on so long that
they had to pinch it to make it stop.
“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter,
“when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time!
Off with his head!’”
“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.
“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone,
“he wo’n’t do a thing I ask! It's always six o’clock now.”
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so
many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always
tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”
“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.
“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”
“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice
ventured to ask.
“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted,
yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us
a story.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the
proposal.
“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!”
And they pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened its eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” it said
in a hoarse, feeble voice, “I heard every word you fellows were
saying.”
“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare.
“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice.
“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep
again before it’s done.”
“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse
began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and
Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well——”
“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great
interest in questions of eating and drinking.
“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a
minute or two.
“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked.
“They’d have been ill.”
“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.”
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary way
of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much: so she went
on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very
earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I
ca’n’t take more.”
“You mean you ca’n’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very
easy to take more than nothing.”
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.
“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked
triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped
herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the
bottom of a well?”
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and
then said, “It was a treacle-well.”
“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but
the Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! Sh!” and the Dormouse
sulkily remarked, “If you ca’n’t be civil, you’d better finish the
story for yourself.”
“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly. “I wo’n’t interrupt
you again. I dare say there may be one.”
“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he
consented to go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were
learning to draw, you know——”
“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her
promise.
“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all, this
time.
“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move
one place on.”
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the
March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather
unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the