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 old 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." [Illustration: THE MARCH HARE] "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. [Illustration: "LISTEN HERE"] "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.