Read Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Online

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CHAPTER IX. THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY  

'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 Drawl- 
ing - 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, T went to the Classics master, though. He 
was an old crab, he was.' 

T 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.'