Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream, Page 2

  CHAPTER I

  OFF TO BLUNDERLAND

  It was one of those dull, drab, depressing days when somehow or other itseemed as if there wasn't anything anywhere for anybody to do. It wasraining outdoors, so that Alice could not amuse herself in the garden,or call upon her friend Little Lord Fauntleroy up the street; anddownstairs her mother was giving a Bridge Party for the benefit of theM. O. Hot Tamale Company, which had lately fallen upon evil days.Alice's mother was a very charitably disposed person, and while sheloathed gambling in all its forms, was nevertheless willing for the sakeof a good cause to forego her principles on alternate Thursdays, but shewas very particular that her little daughter should be kept aloof fromcontaminating influences, so that Alice found herself locked in thenursery and, as I have already intimated, with nothing to do. She hadread all her books--The House of Mirth, the novels of Hall Caine andMarie Corelli--the operation for appendicitis upon her dollie, whilevery successful indeed, had left poor Flaxilocks without a scrap ofsawdust in her veins, and therefore unable to play; and worst of all,her pet kitten, under the new city law making all felines publicproperty, had grown into a regular cat and appeared only at mealtimes,and then in so disreputable a condition that he was not thought to befit company for a child of seven.

  "Oh dear!" cried Alice impatiently, as she sat rocking in her chair,listening to the pattering of the rain upon the roof of the veranda. "Ido wish there was something to do, or somebody to do, or somewhere togo. The Gov'ment ought to provide covered playgrounds for children onwet days. It wouldn't cost much, to put a glass cover on the Park!"

  "A very good, idea! I'll make a note of that," said a squeaky littlevoice at her side.

  THE CHESHIRE CAT]

  Alice sprang to her feet in surprise. She had supposed she was alone,and for a moment she was frightened, but a glance around reassured her,for strange to say, seated on the radiator warming his toes was her oldfriend the Hatter, the queer old chap she had met in her marvellous tripthrough Wonderland, and with him was the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat,and the White Knight from Looking Glass Land.

  "Why--you dear old things!" she cried. "You here?"

  "I don't know about these others, but I'm here," returned the Hatter."The others seem to be here, but I respectfully decline to take mysolemn daffydavy on the subject, because my doctor says I'm all the timeseeing things that ain't. Besides I don't believe in swearing."

  THE MARCH HARE]

  "We're here all right," put in the March Hare. "I know because we ain'tanywhere else, and when you ain't anywhere else you can make up yourmind that you're here."

  "Well, I'm awfully glad to see you," said Alice. "I've been solonesome----"

  "We know that," said the White Knight. "We've been studying your caselately and we thought we'd come down and see what we could do for you.The fact is the Hatter here has founded a model city, where everythinggoes just right, and we came to ask you to pay us a call."

  "A city?" cried Alice.

  "Yep," said the March Hare. "It's called Blunderland and between you andme I don't believe anybody but the Hatter could have invented one likeit. His geegantic brain conceived the whole thing, and I tell you it's acorker."

  "Where is it?" asked Alice.

  "That's telling," said the Hatter. "I haven't had it copyrighted yet,and until I do I ain't going to tell where it is. You can't be toocareful about property these days with copperations lurkin' aroundeverywhere to grab everything in sight."

  "What's a copperation?" asked Alice.

  "What? Never heard of a Copperation?" demanded the Hatter. "Mercy! Everhear of the Mumps, or the Measles, or the Whooping Cough?"

  "Yes--but I never knew they were called Copperations," said Alice.

  "LISTEN HERE"]

  "Well, they ain't, but they're no worse--so they ought to be," said theHatter. "Listen here. I'll tell you what a copperation is."

  And putting his hat in front of his mouth like a telephone the Hatterrecited the following poem through it:

  THE COPPERATION

  A copperation is a beast With forty leven paws That doesn't ever pay the least Attention to the laws.

  It grabs whatever comes in sight From hansom cabs to socks And with a grin of mad delight It turns 'em into stocks

  And then it takes a rubber hose Connected with the sea And pumps em full of H+2+Os Of various degree

  And when they're swollen up so stout You'd think they'd surely bust They souse 'em once again and out They come at last a Trust

  And when the Trust is ready for One last and final whack They let the public in the door To buy the water back.

  "See?" said the Hatter as he finished.

  "No," said Alice. "It sounded very pretty through your hat, but I don'tunderstand it. Why should people buy water when they can get it fornothing in the ocean?"

  "You're like all the rest," groaned the Hatter. "Nobody seems tounderstand but me, and somehow or other I can't make it clear to otherpeople."

  "You might if you didn't talk through your hat," grinned the CheshireCat.

  "Then I'd have to stop being a public character," said the Hatter. "I'mnot going to sacrifice my career just because you're too ignorant to seewhat I'm driving at. I don't mind telling you though, Alice, thatoutside of poetry a Copperation is a Creature devised by SelfishInterests to secure the Free Coinage of the Atlantic Ocean."

  "Little drops of water, Plenty of hot air, Make a Copperation A pretty fat affair,"

  warbled the March Hare.

  "O well," said Alice, "what about it? Suppose there is such an animalaround. What are we going to do about it?"

  "We're going to gerraple with it," said the Hatter, with a valiant shakeof his hat. "We're going to grab it by its throat, and shake it down,and shackle it so that in forty years it will become as tame as a flyor any other highly domesticated animal."

  "But how?" asked Alice. "You aren't going to do this yourself, are you?Single handed and alone?"

  THE MUNICIPAL CHEWERY]

  "Yes," said the Hatter. "The March Hare and the White Knight and I.We've started a city to do it with. We've sprinkled our streets withRough on Copperations until there isn't one left in the place.Everything in town belongs to the People--street cars, gutters,pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canarybirds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, umbrellas, bakeries,cakeries, steakeries, shops,--you can't think of a thing that the citydon't own. No more private ownership of anything from a toothbrush to ayacht, and the result is we are all happy."

  "It sounds fine," said Alice. "Though I think I should rather own my owntoothbrush."

  "You naturally would under the old system," assented the Hatter. "Undera system of private ownership owning your own teeth you'd prefer to ownyour own toothbrush, but our Council has just passed a law making teethpublic property. You see we found that some people had teeth and otherpeople hadn't, which is hardly a fair condition under a Republican formof Government. It gave one class of citizens a distinct advantage overother people and the Declaration of Independence demands absoluteequality for all. One man owning his own teeth could eat all the hickorynuts he wanted just because he had teeth to crack 'em with, whileanother man not having teeth had either to swallow em whole, whichruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn't fair.

  "I see," said Alice.

  THE MUNICIPAL TOOTHERY]

  "So it occurred to Mr. Alderman March Hare here," continued the Hatter,"that we should legislate in the matter, and at our last session wepassed a law providing for the Municipal Ownership of Teeth, so that nowwhen a toothless wanderer wants a hickory nut cracked he has a perfectlylegal right to stop anybody in the street who has teeth and make himcrack the nut for him. Of course we've had a little trouble enforcingthe law--alleged private rights are always difficult to get around.Long-continued possession has seemed so to convince people that theyhave inherent rights to the things they have enjoyed, that they put
up afight and appeal to the Constitution and all that, and even when youmention the fact, as I did in a case that came up the other day (when aman refused to bite on another chap's cigar for him), that theConstitution doesn't mention teeth anywhere in all its classes, they arenot easy to convince. This fellow insisted that his teeth were privateproperty, and no city law should make them public property. He's goingto take it to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile his teeth are in the custodyof the sheriff.

  "And what has become of the man?" asked Alice.

  "He's in the custody of the sheriff too," said the Hatter. "We couldn'tarrange it any other way except by pulling his teeth, and he didn't wantthat."

  "I can't blame him," said Alice reflectively. "I should hate to have myteeth taken away from me."

  "O there's no obfuscation about it," said the Hatter.

  "Confuscation," corrected the March Hare. "I wish you would get thatword right. It's too important to fool with."

  "Thank you," replied the Hatter. "My mind is on higher things than merewords. However, as I was saying, there is no cobfuscation about it. Wedon't take a man's teeth away from him without compensation. We pay himwhat the teeth are worth and place them at the service of the wholecommunity.

  "Where do you get the money to pay him?" asked Alice.

  "We give him a Municipal Bond," explained the Hatter. "It's a ten percent. bond costing two cents to print. When he cracks a hickory nut forthe public, the man he cracks it for pays him a cent. He rings this upon a cash register he carries pinned to his vest, and at the end ofevery week turns in the cash to the City Treasury. That money is used topay the interest on the bonds. The scheme has the additional advantagethat it makes a man's teeth negotiable property in the sense thatwhereas under the old system he couldn't very well sell his teeth, underthe new system he can sell the bond if he gets hard up. Moreover, theCity Government having acquired control has to pay all his dentist'sbills, supply tooth powder and so on, which results in a great saving tothe individual. It hardly costs the city anything, except for the ToothInspector, who is paid $1,200 a year, but we can handle that easilyenough, provided the people will use the Public Teeth in sufficientlylarge numbers to bring in dividends. Anyhow, we have gone in for it,and I see no reason why it should not work as well as any otherMunicipal Ownership scheme."

  "I should love to go and see your city," said Alice, who, though notquite convinced as to the desirability of the Municipal Ownership ofTeeth, was nevertheless very much interested.

  "Very well," said the Hatter. "We can go at once, for I see the train isalready standing in the Station."

  "The Station?" cried Alice. "What Station?"

  "HANDING HER A CARD"]

  But before the Hatter could answer, Alice, glancing through the window,caught sight of a very beautiful train standing before the veranda, andin a moment she found herself stepping on board with her friends, whilea soft-spoken guard at the door was handing her an engraved card upon asilver salver "Respectfully Inviting Miss Alice to Step Lively There."