s _plenty_ of room!" said Alice indignantly. And she sat down in
a large armchair at one end of the table.

"What day of the month is it?" asked the Hatter, 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 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.

"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 "It was the _best_ butter, you know."

"It's always tea-time with us here," explained the Hatter, "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 when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.

"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning. "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 the 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 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 _very_ ill."

Alice 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 the well?"

The Dor