Dialogue following No. 8

All go off at end of song. QUEEN stops to say to ALICE

QUEEN. Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?

ALICE. No, I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.

QUEEN. It’s the thing Mock Turtle soup is made from.

ALICE. I never saw one or heard of one.

QUEEN. The Gryphon shall show you.

Enter GRYPHON

QUEEN. Here Gryphon, introduce this young lady to the Mock Turtle. I must go and see after some executions I have ordered.

Exit QUEEN

GRYPHON. What fun!

ALICE. What is the fun?

GRYPHON. Why, she. It’s all her fancy, that, they never executes nobody you know. Hi! Mock Turtle.

Enter MOCK TURTLE weeping.

ALICE. What is his sorrow?

GRYPHON. It’s all his fancy - that, he hasn’t got no sorrow you know. This here young lady she wants for to know your history, she do.

MOCK. I’ll tell it her. Sit down, both of you. Once I was a real turtle!

GRYPHON. Hjckrrh.

MOCK. When we were little we went to school in the Sea. The Master was an old Turtle, we used to call him Tortoise.

ALICE. Why did you call him tortoise if he wasn’t one?

MOCK. We called him tortoise because he taught us. Really you are very dull.

GRYPHON. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question.

MOCK. Yes, we went to school in the sea; though you mayn’t believe it -

ALICE. I never said I didn’t.

MOCK. You did.

GRYPHON. Hold your tongue.

MOCK. We had the best of educations; in fact we went to school every day.

ALICE. I’ve been to a day school too. You needn’t be so proud as all that.

MOCK. With extras?

ALICE. Yes. We learned French and music.

MOCK. And washing?

ALICE. Certainly not.

MOCK. Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school. Now at ours, they had at the end of the bill, French, music, and washing extra.

ALICE. You couldn’t have wanted it much, living at the bottom of the sea.

MOCK. I couldn’t afford to learn it. I only took the regular course.

ALICE. What was that?

MOCK. Reeling and writhing, of course, to being with, and then the different branches of arithmetic. Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

ALICE. I never heard of Uglification. What is it?

GRYPHON. Never heard of uglifying. You know what to beautify is, I suppose.

ALICE. Yes. It means to make anything prettier.

GRYPHON. Well then, if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.

ALICE. What else had you to learn?

MOCK. Well, there was 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, and Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.

ALICE. What was that like?

MOCK. Well I can’t show you myself. I’m too stiff and the Gryphon never learned it.

GRYPHON. Hadn’t time. I went to the Classical master though, he was an old crab, he was.

MOCK. I never went to him, he taught laughing and grief they used to say.

GRYPHON. So he did. So he did.

Both creatures hide faces in their paws in sorrow.

ALICE. And how many hours a day did you do lessons.

MOCK. Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on.

ALICE. What a curious plan.

GRYPHON. That’s the reason they’re called lessons - because they lessen from day to day.

ALICE. Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday.

MOCK. Of course it was.

ALICE. And how did you manage on the twelfth?

GRYPHON. That’s enough about lessons, sing her a song.