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.
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 little,' the Mock Turtle went
on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, 'we
went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call
him Tortoise—'