Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.
'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 tears to 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 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.'
