“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.”