Page:Alice's adventures in Wonderland - (IA alicesadventures00carr 21).djvu/85

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THE MOCK TURTLE.
75

"I've been to a day school too," said Alice; "you needn't be so proud as all that."

"Were you taught wash-ing?" asked the Mock Tur-tle.

"Of course not," said Al-ice.

"Ah! then yours wasn't a good school," said the Mock Tur-tle. "Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, 'French, mu-sic, and wash-ing—ex-tra.'"

"You couldn't have need-ed it much in the sea," said Al-ice.

"I didn't learn it," said the Mock Tur-tle, with a sigh. "I just took the first course."

"What was that?" asked Al-ice.

"Reel-ing and Writh-ing, of course, at first," the Mock Tur-tle said. "An old eel used to come once a week. He taught us to drawl, to stretch and to faint in coils."

"What was that like?" Al-ice asked.

"Well, I can't show you, my-self," he said: "I'm too stiff. And the Gry-phon didn't learn it."

"How man-y hours a day did you do les-sons?" asked Al-ice.

"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Tur-tle; "nine the next and so on."

"What a strange plan!" said Al-ice.

"That's why they're called les-sons," said the Gry-phon: "they les-sen from day to day."

This was such a new thing to Al-ice that she sat still a