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Alice said nothing: she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again. `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle. `She ca'n't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily. `Go on with the next verse.' `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted. `How could he turn them out with his nose, you know?' `It's the first position in dancing,' Alice said; but she was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated: `it begins "I passed by his garden".' Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling
voice: `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, `What is the use of repeating all that stuff?' the Mock Turtle interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing that I ever heard!' `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to do so. `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the Gryphon went on. `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you another song?' `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,' Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, `Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her "Turtle Soup", will you, old fellow?' The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice choked with sobs, to sing this: `Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Soo--oop of the e--e--evening, `Chorus again!' cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of `The trial's beginning!' was heard in the distance. `Come on!' cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song. `What trial is it?' Alice panted as she ran: but the Gryphon only answered `Come on!' and ran the faster,
while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words: `Soo--oop of the e--e--evening, |
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