"What is the fun?" said Alice.
"Why, she," said the Gryphon; "it's all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you know: come on!"
"Everybody says 'come on!' here," thought Alice as she walked slowly after the Gryphon; "I never was ordered about so before in all my life—never!"
They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could here it sighing as if its heart would break. She pitied it deeply: "what is its sorrow?" she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, "it's all its fancy, that: it hasn't got no sorrow, you know: come on!"
So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.
"This here young lady" said the Gryphon, "wants for to know your history, she do."
"I'll tell it," said the Mock Turtle, in a deep hollow tone, "sit down, and don't speak till I've finished."
So they sat down, and no one spoke for some minutes: Alice thought to herself "I don't see how it can ever finish, if it doesn't begin," but she waited patiently.
"Once," said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, "I was a real Turtle."