“When I’m a Duchess,” she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen at all . Soup does very well without⁠—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour⁠—and camomile that makes them bitter⁠—and⁠—and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that : then they wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know⁠—”

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”

“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark.