Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature,
but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it
as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited.
The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till
she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon,
half to itself, half to Alice.
“What _is_ the fun?” said Alice.
“Why, _she_,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all her fancy, that: they never
executes nobody, you know. Come on!”
“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 _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.”
But she waited patiently.
“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 _must_ be more to come, so she sat still and said
nothing.
“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly,
though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the
sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—”
“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle
angrily: “really you are very dull!”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked
at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the
Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all
day about it!” and he went on in these words:
“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—”
“_I’ve_ been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so
proud as all that.”
“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 _ours_ they had at the end of the bill,
‘French, music, _and washing_—extra.’”
“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom
of the sea.”
“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I
only took the regular course.”
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle
replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition,
Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“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 _are_ a simpleton.”
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: _he_ taught us Drawling, Stretching, and
Fainting in Coils.”
“What was _that_ like?” said Alice.
“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too
stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.”
“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics master,
though. He was an old crab, _he_ was.”
“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught
Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”
“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both
creatures hid their faces in their paws.
“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.”
CHAPTER X.
The Lobster Quadrille
The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across
his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or
two sobs choked his voice. “Same as if he had a bone in his throat,”
said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in
the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears
running down his cheeks, he went on again:—
“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—”
“_That_ generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon.
“—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 lobsters 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, _you_ sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.”
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 _have_ their tails in their mouths;
and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his
eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon.
“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they _would_ go with the
lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to
fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they
couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.”
“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much
about a whiting before.”
“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you
know why it’s called a whiting?”
“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?”
“_It does the boots and shoes_,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly.
Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated
in a wondering tone.
“Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what
makes them so shiny?”
Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her
answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.”
“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice,
“are done with a whiting. Now you know.”
“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently:
“any shrimp could have told you that.”
“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still
running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back,
please: we don’t want _you_ with us!’”