her head!” Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the

soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by

the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the players,

except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of

execution.


Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have

you seen the Mock Turtle yet?”


“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle

is.”


“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” said the

Queen.


“I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice.


“Come on, then,” said the Queen, “and he shall tell you his

history,”


As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the

company generally, “You are all pardoned.” “Come,

that’s a good thing!” she said to herself, for she had felt

quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.


They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If you

don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy

thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock

Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some executions I

have ordered;” and she walked off, leaving Alice alone 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!”