en 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