se to show you," continued the Hatter, eyeing the March Hare
coldly. "And as I have said, the Municipaphone is my crowning
achievement. Just come here and I will show you."

The Hatter led Alice to a nearby lamp-post, and pointing to a little box
fastened to the middle of the pillar explained to her that that was the
Municipaphone.

"We have them in every room in every house in the City, on all the
lamp-posts, hydrants, telegraph poles, in fact everywhere where there is
a chance or room enough to hang one," the Hatter explained.

"It's just like a telephone, isn't it?" said Alice. "Only it looks like
a hat instead of a funnel."

"Exactly," said the Hatter, "but we don't call it a telephone any more.
The word telephone struck me as being a misnomer. You don't tell the
'phone anything when you talk into it. You tell the person at the other
end of the line, and so, I changed its name to the Municipaphone, which
shows that it's a 'phone that belongs to the City. Just to sort of
moralise the thing I had the mouth-piece changed to look like a hat
instead of a funnel, because funnels are apt to suggest alcoholic
beverages and sometimes people who aren't at all thirsty are made so by
the mere power of suggestion. The hat, however, has always commended
itself to our greatest statesmen as a vehicle best suited for the
transmission of ideas, and I therefore adopted it.

"It is very pretty," commented Alice. "Only I think a few ribbons would
improve it a little."

"Possibly," said the Hatter. "We haven't had time yet to look after the
millinery aspect of the situation, but we'll take that up at our next
Cabinet meeting. I thank you for the suggestion. But you see how the
thing works. This little book here has a list of the names of everybody
in town with their Municipaphone numbers attached. The lowly as well as
the highly, from the newsboy up to the Bridge Whist set, are all
represented here, so that all are connected in one way or another with
each other. There is no man, woman, or child so poor and humble of
birth, that he or she cannot get into immediate relations with the
haughty and proud. Everybody is on speaking terms with everybody else,
and we have thereby reached socially a condition wherein all men though
not related are nevertheless connected. You frequently hear a wash-lady
remark that while she has not met Mrs. Van Varick Van Astorbilt or Mrs.
Willieboy de Crudoil personally, they are nevertheless connections o