After Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

herring cordial, but the sorrows always return,” said the Walrus. “They don’t stay drowned. They can be put to death again happily enough.”
    He was a Walrus who looked as if he knew something considerable about sorrow. Then again, thought Ada, perhaps most walruses look like that.
    â€œWhy is an oyster like a writing desk?” asked the tradesman.
    â€œAh. My friend,” said the Walrus to Ada, “is a Carpenter, and he knows many useful things about writing desks. As we are just returning from a breakfast with oysters, perhaps he intends to write about it.” To the Carpenter, the Walrus said, “An excellent riddle, my dear man. The very wet child beyond may have an opinion on the matter.”
    â€œWhy is an oyster like a writing desk?” called the Carpenter in a voice keyed to falsetto.
    Ada had found purchase with her feet now, so she could stop rotating her arms and knees. She said musingly, “ Why is an oyster like a writing desk?”
    â€œThat’s our riddle,” remarked the Walrus. “Don’t ask it back to us. You can ask us one of your own. If you have one.”
    â€œI’m pondering. Why is an oyster like a writing desk?” She reviewed the conversation they’d had. “I think I know. An oyster is like a writing desk because neither can be drowned.”
    â€œThat’s the correct answer,” said the Walrus. He drooped his moustaches farther than usual. “You’re good.”
    â€œDo I get a prize?” asked Ada. “Where I come from, riddles are sometimes tests to prove the merit of the hero. If the hero guesses the answer correctly, very often a door is opened unto him.”
    â€œWell, if a hero comes along, we’ll open the door for him,” said the Walrus. “That’s your prize.”
    â€œAnd if there isn’t a door, I’ll build one,” said the Carpenter. “Do you have a riddle for us?”
    Ada only knew one riddle. “When is a door not a door?”
    The pair of beachcombers looked at each other from beneath whiskery eyebrows. The Walrus shrugged. “It is a dreadful mystery,” whispered the Carpenter. “No one can ever know the answer to that question. It is existentially, hyperbolically, quintessentially unknowable.”
    â€œI know it, and I’ll tell you,” said Ada proudly. “A door is not a door when it is ajar.”
    â€œA jar of what?” asked the Walrus. “Jellyfish jam, I hope? Mackerel marmalade?”
    â€œNo, ajar —­it’s a word that means open . Standing open.”
    The Carpenter slapped his palm against the Walrus’s upturned flipper, and they danced a bit of a quadrille, as well as they could without six partners.
    â€œWell, that settles that, then!” said the Carpenter. “Am I right or am I right?”
    â€œIs that another riddle?” asked Ada. “What do I get if I answer it correctly?”
    â€œA further chance to fail,” said the Carpenter. He stopped cavorting and the two of them began to trudge away. Oyster shells, the ones that had fallen from their pockets as they danced, cracked when trod upon. They made a sound like the splintering of fine porcelain.
    When the pair of ambassadors had passed from view, and Ada couldn’t see another creature about, she clambered out of the salt sea. The air was cool on her skin. Her clothes waited on the strand, dry and neatly folded. They showed no sign of damage. A sprig of seaweed was attractively arranged upon the top like a spray of rosemary. Ada dressed with little pain and an ease that approached the gymnastic. The sensation was so novel as to be nearly troubling. Once appropriately clothed, she walked along the sand in the direction from which her interlocutors had come. She didn’t care to encounter them again, at least not just yet. She wasn’t sure why. Her gait was still lopsided, but so was the world, so she kept