If I'd been the whiting," said Alice, whose thoughts were still running
on the song, "I'd have said to the porpoise, 'Keep back, please: we
don't want _you_ with us!'"

"They were obliged to have him with them," the Mock Turtle said: "no
wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise."

"Wouldn't it really?" said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

"Of course not," said the Mock Turtle: "why, if a fish came to _me_, and
told me he was going a journey, I should say, 'With what porpoise?'"

"Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice.

"I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And
the Gryphon added, "Come, let's hear some of _your_ adventures."

[Illustration: _The Mock Turtle drew a long breath and said, "That's
very curious"_]

"I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning," said
Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday,
because I was a different person then."

"Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle.

"No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone:
"explanations take such a dreadful time."

So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first
saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first,
the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened
their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went
on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about
her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and
the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long
breath, and said, "That's very curious."

"It's all about as curious as it can be," said the Gryphon.

"It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I
should like to hear her repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He
looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority
over Alice.

"Stand up and repeat '_'Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the
Gryphon.

"How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!"
thought Alice. "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got
up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster
Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came
very queer indeed:--

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids,