The Red Knight had been rowing for a long time and Alice noticed that they were still in the same place. That was on account of the peculiar way in which the Red Knight handled the oars. He pulled at the right oar as hard as he could and pushed with the left oar as hard as he could and the boat went round and round in a circle.
"We aren't getting any nearer the shore, are we?" he asked anxiously.
"Not a bit," said Alice.
"That's fine," said the Red Knight. "Now you can see that I am neither a wild-eyed radical nor a moss-grown reactionary."
But Alice's conscience began to trouble her.
"You know," she said. "I promised Mamma that I would go out in a boat under no circumstances."
"That's all right, then," said the Red Knight. "It's just what you are doing."
"But I am not," said Alice.
"You are very stupid," said the Red Knight. "Suppose you said. 'I will go out in the rain under no umbrella.' Wouldn't that mean that you intended to go out without an umbrella?"
"It might mean that," said Alice.
"And suppose you said, 'I will go to bed under no blanket,' it would mean that you preferred to sleep without a blanket, wouldn't it?"
"I suppose so," said Alice.
"Now, were there any circumstances why you should have gone out with me in this boat?" asked the Red Knight.
"No," said Alice.
"Well, then, isn't it as plain as anything that you are going out in this boat under no circumstances?"
But Alice only began to whimper.
"I promised Mamma," she said, "that I should be home at five o'clock."
"Selfish!" said the Red Knight.
"I am not selfish," cried Alice. "I promised Mamma I'd come and I want to keep my promise."
"That's what I call selfish," said the Red Knight; "giving somebody your promise and wanting to keep it, too. I'd never be guilty of such conduct. It's like giving somebody your piece of plum pudding and wanting to keep it at the same time."
"But a promise isn't plum pudding," said Alice.
"Of course it isn't," said the Red Knight. "Plum pudding is much harder to swallow."
"Oh, you know well enough what I mean," said Alice, quite out of patience. "It isn't the promise I want to keep; it's what I promised about."
"Oh, in that case, we quite agree," said the Red Knight. "If you give people a promise and keep something else, it's all right." And he began to row harder than ever.