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 learned 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