"Wiggins, the Mayor would like to hear that new Limerick of yours," said the Commissioner. [Illustration: "IT RUNS THIS WAY, YOUR HONOUR"] "Thanky sir," said Wiggins. "It runs this way, your honour. "There was an old lady named Jane Who sat on a fence at Schoharie. A rooster came by And crew like the deuce But Jane never scared for a cent." "That's great," said the Hatter. "Don't you think so, Miss Alice?" "Why yes," said Alice, "but--does it rhyme?" "Perfectly," replied the Hatter, "that is, under our system. When we organised this Department to facilitate business and avoid the waste of time looking for rhymes we legalised such rhymes as Schoharie and cent and by and deuce. By that act we found that where one man could only turn out 800 Limericks a day under the old system, any ablebodied-poet can write 3,000 in the same number of hours. That's very good, Wiggins," he added turning to the workman. "I shall recommend the Commissioner to promote you to an Inspectorship in the Sonnet works." "Thanky sir," said the Poet, as he blushingly bowed himself out. [Illustration: "OUR THINKING DEPARTMENT"] "Here," said the Commissioner, opening a door leading into a long, darkened chamber, "here, young lady, is our Thinking Department." Alice passed into the darkness and dimly made out a half a hundred long-haired individuals sitting in comfortable Morris chairs, their forefingers pressed hard against their brows and their eyes gazing fixedly out into space. "These men and women think the thoughts which our municipal poetry is designed to express," the Commissioner continued. "A thought once seized by any one of them is written down upon a pad, and then taken into this next room where it is classified and assigned to the line cutters who turn out the first draft in the rough. Then when this is done it is sent to the rhyming room where the lines are made to end in rhymes, and finally it goes to the Polishing room where the poem is made ready for publication." "It's a wonderful system," said the Hatter. "It not only improves the quality of our poetry, but in campaign times it is a great help, since we control absolutely all the campaign poetry. When I run for mayor next fall to succeed myself there won't be a single poem written on the other side." "That ought to be a great help," said Alice. "Yes," said the Hatter. "It will be. Every employee in this Department will not only vote for me but will work for me as well. Same way in the gas plant and the trolley--in fact in all the City Departments. It is only another evidence of the very great value of Municipal Ownership. It is uncertainty in political times that upsets business, but with the Municipality in control of all these Departments from Gas to Poetry there is no uncertainty about who will win, so that business is not unsettled by it." "Wonderful," said Alice.