Chapter: 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.

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.

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this, but all he said
was "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

"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."

"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, which 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 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."

[Illustration]

"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 gave a weary sigh. "I think you might do something better with the
time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no
answers."

"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 can't
take more."

"You mean you can't take _less_," said the Hatter; "it's very easy to
take _more_ than nothing."

At this, Alice got up and walked off. The Dormouse fell asleep instantly
and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she
looked back once or twice; the last time she saw them, they were
trying to put the Dormouse into the tea-pot.

[Illustration: The Trial of the Knave of Hearts.]

"At any rate, I'll never go _there_ again!" said Alice, as she picked
her way through the wood. "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in
all my life!" Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees
had a door leading right into it. "That's very curious!" she thought. "I
think I may as well go in at once." And in she went.

Once more she found herself in the long hall and close to the little
glass table. Taking the little golden key, she unlocked the door that
led into the garden. Then she set to work nibbling at the mushroom (she
had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high;
then she walked down the little passage; and _then_--she found herself
at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the
cool fountains.

 Alice approaches a tea party which consists of a Mad Hatter, a March Hare and a sleeping Doormouse. The whole party is rude to her, but she chooses to join them anyway and begins to engage them in conversation. The conversation, in someway, concerns riddles with no answers, but in general consists of a series of wordplays about points of logic. The heart of the matter is that the group is living in a nonsense world and at the end of the chapter, Alice has the good sense to get up and leave. This chapter is basically an endcap to the lunacy of the preceding books. She is at a mad tea-party with mad animals and a mad hatter where time has stopped and riddles have no answer. The whole thing is a sort of sum up of the craziness of Alice's previous interactions, where meaning has degenerated to a final point of meaninglessness. So Alice leaves, having learned a bit on her journey about being an adult and growing up. She goes through a doorway placed conveniently in a tree and finds herself back in the small hallway with the glass table that she had started out in. Alice has come full circle. Now it will be a question of whether or not Alice can apply what she has learned. Can she be polite? And does she know when being polite ceases to be of any point? That is, will she be able to figure out at what point she should stop being polite and act to prevent things from getting out of hand? Can she both tolerate adulthood, and live up to the responsibility of being grown up? She makes a good first step. She finds the key on the table and, using good sense and her magic mushroom, she shrinks down to an appropriate size to open the door and enter the garden. She has, at least, learned enough to get what she has wanted all along. Now, does she deserve it?

