"Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school," said the Mock-Turtle in a tone of great relief. "Now at _ours_ they had at the end of the bill, 'French, music, _and washing_--extra.'" "You couldn't have wanted it much," said Alice; "living at the bottom of the sea." "I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock-Turtle with a sigh. "I only took the regular course." "What was that?" inquired Alice. "Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock-Turtle replied; "and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." "I never heard of 'Uglification,'" Alice ventured to say. "What is it?" The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. "Never heard of uglifying!" it exclaimed. "You know what to beautify is, I suppose?" "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 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 Classical 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. A CLEAR STATEMENT From 'Alice in Wonderland' They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him: She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true); If she should push the matter on, What would become of you? I gave her one, they gave him two, You gave us three or more; They all returned from him to you, Though they were mine before.