CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.[Off to Blunderland]3
II.[The Immovable Trolley]19
III.[The Aromatic Gas Plant]37
IV.[The City-owned Police]56
V.[The Municipaphone]73
VI.[The Department of Public Verse]92
VII.[Ownership of Children]108

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
[The Cheshire Cat]5
[The March Hare]6
["'Listen here'"]7
[The municipal chewery]11
[The municipal toothery]13
["Handing her a card"]17
["'Put that fellow off'"]20
["Requested the Hatter to crack a filbert for him"]24
["'Banged into the car ahead'"]27
[The Chief Engineer]30
["'It came to me like a flash'"]31
["'Studying the economic theories of Dr. Wack'"]45
["The White Knight interfered"]48
["'In the matter of perfume it was fine'"]50
["'Nobody could be gas-fixturated'"]51
["Wrote on the side of a convenient gas tank"]57
["'I'm the soundest sleeper in town'"]59
["'Tea is served on every corner'"]64
["'We respond immediately to the call'"]67
["Made off with the agility of an antelope"]69
["'You can talk all you please'"]73
["'Fined five dollars'"]84
["'The dictionary we are compiling'"]85
["Alice transfixed at the phone"]86
["'The biggest jackass from Dan to Beersheba'"]87
["'Larger measure than was the custom'"]94
["Greeted by the Commissioner, the Haberdasher"]99
["'It runs this way, your honour'"]100
["'Our thinking department'"]102
["'When they think nobody's looking'"]116
["'If you get into trouble, use this'"]119
["Seizing her by the arm"]122
["'Why—have I—I really fallen?'"]124

CHAPTER I

OFF TO BLUNDERLAND

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