eight o'clock
`` We tried a good many experiments about day and night . It was very funny at first not to know when it would be light and when dark , for really the names day and night do not express a great deal for us . Of course the pendulum clocks all went wrong till the men got them overhauled , and I think watches and clocks both will soon go out of fashion . But we have settled down on much the old hours , getting up , without reference to daylight , by our great gong , at your eight o'clock . But when the eclipse season comes , we vary from that for signalling . `` We still make separate families , and Alice 's is the seventh . We tried hotel life and we liked it , for there has never been the first quarrel here .