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," said the Dormouse, "_very_ ill."

Alice tried a little 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 can't
take more."

"You mean you can'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 can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for
yourself."

"No, please go on!" Alice said, very humbly, "I won't interrupt you
again. I dare say there may be _one_."

"One, indeed!" said the Dormouse, indignantly. However it 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 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 only one who got any
advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than
before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk jug into hi