"He is a man of real inventive genius," said the March Hare, anxious, apparently, to square himself with the Hatter again.
"Thank you, Alderman," said the Hatter. "It is a real pleasure to find myself strictly in accord with your views once more. But to resume, Miss Alice--as I say I resolved to tackle the problem myself."
"Fine," said Alice. "So you went in and studied how to make gas the old way and then----"
"Not at all," interrupted the Hatter. "Not at all. That would have been fatal. I found that everybody who knew how to make gas the old way said the thing was impossible. Hence, I reasoned, the man who will find it possible must be somebody who never knew anything about the old way of making gas, and nobody in the whole world knew less about it than I. Manifestly then I became the chosen instrument to work the reform, so I plunged in and you really can't imagine how easy it all turned out. I had no old prejudices in gas-making to overcome, no set, finicky ideas to serve as obstacles to progress, and inside of a week I had it. I filled the gas tanks half full of cologne, and then pumped hot air through them until they were chock full. I figured it out that cologne was nothing more than alcohol flavoured with axiomatic oils----"
"Aromatic," interrupted the March Hare, forgetting himself for the moment.
[Illustration: "THE WHITE KNIGHT INTERFERED"]
The Hatter frowned heavily upon the Alderman, and there is no telling what would have happened had not the White Knight interfered to protect the offender.
"It's still an open question, Mr. Mayor," he observed, "if axiomatic applied to a scent is constitutional. If an odour should become axiomatic we could never get rid of it you see, and I think the Alderman has distinguished authority for his correction, which----"
"O very well," said the Hatter. "Let it go. I prefer axiomatic, but the private predilections of an official should not be permitted to influence his official actions. I intend always to operate within the limits of the law, so if the law says aromatic, aromatic be it. I figured that cologne was nothing more than alcohol flavoured with aromatic oils, and that inasmuch as both alcohol and oil burn readily, there was no reason why hot air passed through them should not burn also, and carry oil some of the aroma as well."