“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:—