[shedthemonkey]

The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet, which hung from the
saddle. `Yes,' he said, `but I've invented a better one than
that--like a sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the
horse, it always touched the ground directly. So I had a VERY little
way to fall, you see--But there WAS the danger of falling INTO it,
to be sure. That happened to me once--and the worst of it was,
before I could get out again, the other White Knight came and put it
on. He thought it was his own helmet.'


The knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to
laugh. `I'm afraid you must have hurt him,' she said in a trembling
voice, `being on the top of his head.'


`I had to kick him, of course,' the Knight said, very seriously.
`And then he took the helmet off again--but it took hours and hours
to get me out. I was as fast as--as lightning, you know.'


`But that's a different kind of fastness,' Alice objected.


The Knight shook his head. `It was all kinds of fastness with me, I
can assure you!' he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as
he said this, and instantly rolled out of the saddle, and fell
headlong into a deep ditch.


Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him. She was rather
startled by the fall, as for some time he had kept on very well, and
she was afraid that he really WAS hurt this time. However, though
she could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was much
relieved to hear that he was talking on in his usual tone. `All
kinds of fastness,' he repeated: `but it was careless of him to put
another man's helmet on--with the man in it, too.'


`How CAN you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?' Alice asked,
as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the
bank.


The Knight looked surprised at the question. `What does it matter
where my body happens to be?' he said. `My mind goes on working all
the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep
inventing new things.'


`Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,' he went on
after a pause, `was inventing a new pudding during the meat-
course.'


`In time to have it cooked for the next course?' said Alice. `Well,
not the NEXT course,' the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone:
`no, certainly not the next COURSE.'


`Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn't have
two pudding-courses in one dinner?'


`Well, not the NEXT day,' the Knight repeated as before: `not the
next DAY. In fact,' he went on, holding his head down, and his voice
getting lower and lower, `I don't believe that pudding ever WAS
cooked! In fact, I don't believe that pudding ever WILL be cooked!
And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.'


`What did you mean it to be made of?' Alice asked, hoping to cheer
him up, for the poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it.


`It began with blotting paper,' the Knight answered with a groan.


`That wouldn't be very nice, I'm afraid--'


`Not very nice ALONE,' he interrupted, quite eagerly: `but you've no
idea what a difference it makes mixing it with other things--such as
gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must leave you.' They had just
come to the end of the wood.


Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding.


`You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone: `let me sing you
a song to comfort you.'


`Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of
poetry that day.


`It's long,' said the Knight, `but very, VERY beautiful. Everybody
that hears me sing it--either it brings the TEARS into their eyes,
or else--'


`Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.


`Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called
"HADDOCKS' EYES."'


`Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel
interested.


`No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
`That's what the name is CALLED. The name really IS "THE AGED AGED
MAN."'


`Then I ought to have said "That's what the SONG is called"?' Alice
corrected herself.


`No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called
"WAYS AND MEANS": but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!'


`Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time
completely bewildered.


`I was coming to that,' the Knight said. `The song really IS
"A-SITTING ON A GATE": and the tune's my own invention.'


So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck:
then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile
lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of
his song, he began.


Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The
Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most
clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back
again, as if it had been only yesterday--the mild blue eyes and
kindly smile of the Knight--the setting sun gleaming through his
hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite
dazzled her--the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging
loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet--and the black
shadows of the forest behind--all this she took in like a picture,
as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree,
watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half dream, to the
melancholy music of the song.


`But the tune ISN'T his own invention,' she said to herself: `it's
"I GIVE THEE ALL, I CAN NO MORE."' She stood and listened very
attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.



`I'll tell thee everything I can; There's little to relate. I saw an
aged aged man, A-sitting on a gate. "Who are you, aged man?" I said,
"and how is it you live?" And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said "I look for butterflies That sleep among the wheat: I make
them into mutton-pies, And sell them in the street. I sell them unto
men," he said, "Who sail on stormy seas; And that's the way I get my
bread-- A trifle, if you please."

But I was thinking of a plan To dye one's whiskers green, And always
use so large a fan That they could not be seen. So, having no reply
to give To what the old man said, I cried, "Come, tell me how you
live!" And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale: He said "I go my ways, And when I
find a mountain-rill, I set it in a blaze; And thence they make a
stuff they call Rolands' Macassar Oil-- Yet twopence-halfpenny is
all They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a way To feed oneself on batter, And so go on
from day to day Getting a little fatter. I shook him well from side
to side, Until his face was blue: "Come, tell me how you live," I
cried, "And what it is you do!"

He said "I hunt for haddocks' eyes Among the heather bright, And
work them into waistcoat-buttons In the silent night. And these I do
not sell for gold Or coin of silvery shine But for a copper
halfpenny, And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, Or set limed twigs for crabs; I
sometimes search the grassy knolls For wheels of Hansom-cabs. And
that's the way" (he gave a wink) "By which I get my wealth-- And
very gladly will I drink Your Honour's noble health."

I heard him then, for I had just Completed my design To keep the
Menai bridge from rust By boiling it in wine. I thanked much for
telling me The way he got his wealth, But chiefly for his wish that
he Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put My fingers into glue Or madly
squeeze a right-hand foot Into a left-hand shoe, Or if I drop upon
my toe A very heavy weight, I weep, for it reminds me so, Of that
old man I used to know--

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow, Whose hair was whiter
than the snow, Whose face was very like a crow, With eyes, like
cinders, all aglow, Who seemed distracted with his woe, Who rocked
his body to and fro, And muttered mumblingly and low, As if his
mouth were full of dough, Who snorted like a buffalo-- That summer
evening, long ago, A-sitting on a gate.'



As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the
reins, and turned his horse's head along the road by which they had
come. `You've only a few yards to go,' he said,' down the hill and
over that little brook, and then you'll be a Queen-- But you'll stay
and see me off first?' he added as Alice turned with an eager look
in the direction to which he pointed. `I shan't be long. You'll wait
and wave your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I
think it'll encourage me, you see.'


`Of course I'll wait,' said Alice: `and thank you very much for
coming so far--and for the song--I liked it very much.'


`I hope so,' the Knight said doubtfully: `but you didn't cry so much
as I thought you would.'


So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the
forest. `It won't take long to see him OFF, I expect,' Alice said to
herself, as she stood watching him. `There he goes! Right on his
head as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily--that comes
of having so many things hung round the horse--' So she went on
talking to herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along
the road, and the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on
the other. After the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and
then she waved her handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out
of sight.


`I hope it encouraged him,' she said, as she turned to run down the
hill: `and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it
sounds!' A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. `The
Eighth Square at last!' she cried as she bounded across,


*





*

and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with
little flower-beds dotted about it here and there. `Oh, how glad I
am to get here! And what IS this on my head?' she exclaimed in a
tone of dismay, as she put her hands up to something very heavy, and
fitted tight all round her head.


`But how CAN it have got there without my knowing it?' she said to
herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out
what it could possibly be.


It was a golden crown.