"You are not attending!" said the Mouse to Alice, severely. "What are you thinking of?"
"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly: "you had got to the fifth bend, I think?"
"I had not!" cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
"A knot!" said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her "Oh, do let me help to undo it!" (Wonderland 3.34-37)
Before the "Who's on First?" sketch, there were the Alice books. In each line, a new misinterpretation (usually totally illogical) interferes with the communication between characters. Alice's confusion of the homophones "tale" / "tail" and "knot" / "not" is behind this comedic exchange. (Take a look at Chapter 3 to see the Mouse's "tale" pictured as a concrete poem "tail.")