ld make
that of the violet, and the rose, sink into inoculated desoupitude?"

"It hardly seems possible, does it?" said Alice.

"To a private mind it presents insuperable difficulties," said the
Hatter, "but to a public mind like my own nothing is impossible. If a
man can do a seemingly impossible thing with one plant there is no
reason why he shouldn't do a seemingly impossible thing with another
plant, so I immediately wrote to Professor Burbank offering him a
hundred thousand dollars in Blunderland Deferred Debenture Gas
Improvement Bonds a year to come here and see what he could do to
transmogrify our gas-plant."

"Oh, I am so glad," cried Alice delightedly. "I should so love to meet
Mr. Burbank and thank him for inventing the coreless apple----"

"You don't means the Corliss Engine, do you?" asked the White Knight.

"Well, I'm sorry," said the Hatter, "but Mr. Burbank wouldn't come
unless we'd pay him real money, which, although we don't publish the
fact broadcast, is not in strict accord with the highest principles of
Municipal Ownership. We contend that when people work for the common
weal they ought to be satisfied to receive their pay in the common
wealth, and under the M. O. system the most common kind of wealth is
represented by Bonds. Consequently we wrote again to Mr. Burbank, and
expressed our regret that a man of his genius should care more for his
own selfish interests than for the public weal, and as a sort of sarcasm
on his meanness I enclosed five of our 2963 Guaranteed Extension four
per cents to pay for the two-cent stamp he had put upon his letter."

"What are the 2963 Guaranteed Extension four per cents?" asked Alice.

[Illustration: "STUDYING THE ECONOMIC THEORIES OF DR. WACK."]

"They are sinking fund bonds payable in 2963, only we guarantee to extend
the date of payment to 3963 in case the sinking fund has sunk so low we
don't feel like paying them in 2963," explained the Hatter. "It's an
ingenious financial idea that I got from studying the economic theories
of Dr. Wack, Professor of Repudiation and Other Political Economies at
the Wack Business College at Squantumville, Florida. It is the only
economic theory I know of that absolutely prevents debt from becoming a
burden. But that aside, when Mr. Burbank showed that he preferred
fooling with such futile things as pineapples and hollyhocks, to the
really uplifting work of providing the people with gas that was redolent
of the spices of