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, that was quick work, certainly!'

`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 it's 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.'