hing!' 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!'

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance,
sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came
nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She
pitied him deeply. 'What is his sorrow?' she asked the Gryphon, and the
Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, 'It's all his
fancy, that: he hasn't got no sorrow, you know. Come on!'

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes
full of tears, but said nothing.

'This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, 'she wants for to know your
history, she do.'

'I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: 'sit
down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've finished.'

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to
herself, 'I don't see how he can EVEN finish, if he doesn't begin.' But
she waited patiently.

'Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, 'I was a real
Turtle.'

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an
occasional exclamation of 'Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and the constant
heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and
saying, 'Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,' but she could
not help thinking there MUST be more to come, so she sat still and said
nothing.

'When we were lit