"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 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!" "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. "They were learning to draw," the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy, "and they drew all manner of things--everything that begins with an M----" "Why with an M?" said Alice. "Why not?" said the March Hare. The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on, "----that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--you know you say things are 'much of a muchness'--did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?" "Really, now you ask me," said Alice, confused, "I don't think----" "Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter. This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear; she got up in disgust, 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, half hoping that they would call after her. The last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.