“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.”
“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.”
“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you _are_ a simpleton.”
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?”
“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the 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 learnt it.”
“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics 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.”