`Why,
`Everybody says "come on!" here,' thought Alice, as she went slowly after it: `I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!'
They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. `What is his sorrow?' she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, `It's all his fancy, that: he hasn't got no sorrow, you know. Come on!'
So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.
`This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, `she wants for to know your history, she do.'
`I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: `sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've finished.'
So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, `I don't see how he can
`Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, `I was a real Turtle.'
These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of `Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, `Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,' but she could not help thinking there
`Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe it-'
`I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.
`You did,' said the Mock Turtle.
`Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.
`We had the best of educations-in fact, we went to school every day-'
`
`With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
`Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'
`And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
`Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.
`Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. `Now at
`I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. `What is it?'
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is, I suppose?'
`Yes,' said Alice doubtfully: `it means-to-make-anything-prettier.'
`Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to uglify is, you
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you to learn?'
`Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, `-Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling-the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week:
`Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon: `I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab,
`And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
`Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the next, and so on.'
`What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
`That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.'
This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. `Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?'
`Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.
`And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.
`That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone: `tell her something about the games now.'
`You may not have lived much under the sea-' (`I haven't,' said Alice)— `and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster-' (Alice began to say `I once tasted-' but checked herself hastily, and said `No, never') `-so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'
`No, indeed,' said Alice. `What sort of a dance is it?'
`Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore-'
`Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle. `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way-'
`
`-you advance twice-'
`Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.
`Of course,' the Mock Turtle said: `advance twice, set to partners-'
`-change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the Gryphon.
`Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the-'
`The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.
`-as far out to sea as you can-'
`Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.
`Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.
`Change lobster's again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
`Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.
`It must be a very pretty dance,' said Alice timidly.
`Would you like to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle.
`Very much indeed,' said Alice.
`Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. `We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?'
`Oh,
So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly:-
`"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my
tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle-will you come and join the
dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to
sea!"
But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look
askance-
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the
dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join
the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join
the dance.
`"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France-
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
dance?"'
`Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: `and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!'
`Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they-you've seen them, of course?'
`Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn-' she checked herself hastily.
`I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like.'
`I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. `They have their tails in their mouths-and they're all over crumbs.'
`You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle: `crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they
`'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
"You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'
[later editions continued as follows
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]
`That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,' said the Gryphon.
`Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it sounds uncommon nonsense.'