Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 7, by Lewis Carroll. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer, please contact LibriVox.org. Chapter 7, A Mad Tea Party.

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It's always tea time, 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 what happens when you come to the beginning again? Alice ventured to ask. 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. I'm afraid I don't know one, said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal. Then the dormouse shall, they both cried. Wake up, dormouse! And they pinched it on both sides at once.

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"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the March Hare. "I didn't know it was your table," said Alice. "It's laid for a great many more than three." "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."

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"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 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.

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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. But everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once. And in she went.

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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. Not at first, perhaps, said the Hatter. But you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked. Is that the way you manage? Alice asked. The Hatter shook his head mournfully. Not I, he replied. We quarrelled last March, just before he went mad, you know, pointing with his teaspoon at the March Hare.

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"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!' " "How dreadfully savage!" exclaimed Alice. "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." A bright idea came into Alice's head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?" she asked. "Yes, that's it," said the Hatter with a sigh.

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"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter. "Nor I," said the March Hare. Alice sighed wearily. "I do think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers." "If you knew time as well as I do," said the Hatter, "you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him." "I don't know what you mean," said Alice.

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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.