e were still other ends left? No matter how far we
clipped 'em, it was the same. It's a curious scientific fact that you
can't cut off the end of anything and leave it endless. We tried it with
a lot of things--cars, lengths of hose, coils of wire, rope--everything
we could think of--always with the same result. Ends were endless, but
nothing else was. As a matter of fact they multiplied on us. One car
that had two ends when we began was cut in the middle, and then was
found to have four ends instead of two."

"That's so, isn't it!" cried Alice.

[Illustration: "IT CAME TO ME LIKE A FLASH"]

"It unquestionably is," said the Hatter, "and we were at our wits' ends
until one night it came to me like a flash. I had gone to bed on a Park
Bench, according to my custom of using nothing that is not owned by the
city, for I am very serious about this thing, when just as I was dozing
on the whole scheme unfolded itself. Build a circular car, of course.
One big enough to go all around the city. That would solve so many
problems. With only one car, there'd be no car ahead, which always
irritates people who miss it and then have to take it later. With only
one car, there could be no collisions. With only one car we could get
along with only one motorman and one conductor at a time, thus giving
the others time to go to dancing school and learn good manners. With
only one car, and that a permanent fixture, nobody could miss it. If it
didn't move we could economise on motive power, and even bounce the
motorman without injury to the service, if he should happen to be
impudent to the Board of Aldermen; nobody would be run over by it;
nobody would be injured getting on and off; it wouldn't make any
difference if the motorman didn't see the passenger who wanted to get
aboard. Being circular there'd always be room enough to go around, and
there'd be no front or back platform for the people to stand on or get
thrown off of going round the curves. The expenses of keeping up the
roadbed would be nothing, because, being motionless, the car wouldn't
jolt even if it ran over a thank-you-marm a mile high, and best of all,
a circular car has no ends to collide with other ends, which makes it
absolutely safe. I never heard of a car colliding with itself, did you?"

"No, I never did," replied Alice.

"Nor I neither," said the March Hare. "I don't think it ever happened,
and therefore I reason that it ain't going to happen."

"And how do the peo