‘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 Mo