"I didn't know it was your table," said Alice; "it's laid for a great many more than three."

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 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."

"There's plenty of room!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

"There isn't any," said the March Hare.

"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.

"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.

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

"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.

"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.

"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."

"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" said the March Hare.

"Exactly so," said Alice.

"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'!"

"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'!"

"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least -- at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know."

"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 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."

"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'!"

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.

"Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well," the Hatter grumbled, "you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife."

"It was the best butter," the March Hare meekly replied.

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.

"Why should it?" muttered the Hatter. "Does your watch tell you what year it is?"

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!"

"Of course not," Alice replied very readily, "but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together."

"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."

"Which is just the case with mine," said the Hatter.

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed 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.

"No, I give it up," Alice replied, "what's the answer?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.

"If you knew Time as well as I do," said the Hatter, "you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him."

"Nor I." said the March Hare.

"Ah! That accounts for it," said the Hatter. "He won'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 don't know what you mean," said Alice.

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."

"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."

"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."

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.

'Up above the world you fly, like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle --'"

'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!'

"I've heard something like it." said Alice.

"How dreadfully savage!" exclaimed Alice.

"Is that the way you manage?" Alice asked.

"It goes on, you know," the Hatter continued, "in this way --

"You know the song, perhaps?"

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. "Not I!" he replied. "We quarreled last March -- just before he went mad, you know --" (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare), "-- it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing:

"Not at first, perhaps," said the Hatter, "but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked."

"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!'"

"Exactly so," said the Hatter: "as the things get used up."

"And ever since that," the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, "he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now."

"Then you keep moving round, I suppose?" said Alice.

A bright idea came into Alice's head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?" she asked.

"But what happens when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.

"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."

"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."

From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland