Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream

								

friend the Hatter, the queer old chap she had met in her marvellous trip
through 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 my
solemn daffydavy on the subject, because my doctor says I'm all the time
seeing things that ain't. Besides I don't believe in swearing."
"We're here all right," put in the March Hare. "I know because we ain't
anywhere else, and when you ain't anywhere else you can make up your
mind that you're here."
"Well, I'm awfully glad to see you," said Alice. "I've been so
lonesome----"
"We know that," said the White Knight. "We've been studying your case
lately 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 everything
goes 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 and
me I don't believe anybody but the Hatter could have invented one like
it. His geegantic brain conceived the whole thing, and I tell you it's a
corker."
"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 too
careful about property these days with copperations lurkin' around
everywhere to grab everything in sight."
"What's a copperation?" asked Alice.
"What? Never heard of a Copperation?" demanded the Hatter. "Mercy! Ever
hear of the Mumps, or the Measles, or the Whooping Cough?"
"Yes--but I never knew they were called Copperations," said Alice.
"Well, they ain't, but they're no worse--so they ought to be," said the
Hatter. "Listen here. I'll tell you what a copperation is."
And putting his hat in front of his mouth like a telephone the Hatter
recited 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't