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Things may not bee what they seem.
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Alice in Wonderland –
Chapter X
“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said
Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that
curious song about the whiting!”
“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve
seen them, of course?”
“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she
checked herself hastily.
“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but
if you’ve seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.”
“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. “They have their
tails in their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.”
“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the Mock Turtle:
“crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they have their tails in their
mouths; and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his
eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon.
“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they would go with
the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a
long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get
them out again. That’s all.”
“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never
knew so much about a whiting before.”
“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the
Gryphon. “Do you know why it’s called a whiting?”
“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?”
“It does the boots and shoes,” the Gryphon replied very
solemnly.
Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!”
she repeated in a wondering tone.
“Why, what are your shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I
mean, what makes them so shiny?”
Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before
she gave her answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.”
“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a
deep voice, “are done with a whiting. Now you know.”
“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great
curiosity.
“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather
impatiently: “any shrimp could have told you that.”
“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.”
“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 try and 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, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.”
[later editions continued as follows
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]
“That’s different from what I used to say when I was a
child,” said the Gryphon.
“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but
it sounds uncommon nonsense.”
Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her
hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.
