I exhume the tale of the glib hatter in The Dabbler this week. When the piece first appeared here at Hooting Yard, long long ago, I remember that I was bombarded with letters from readers desperate to be told what sort of hats the hatter made, and in what manner his glibness manifested itself. I refused to answer those questions at the time, as I refuse to answer them now. There is only so far one can go when holding the reader by the hand and leading him or her along the fictional path. The fictional path is a very different path to a real path, of kerbstones perhaps, or just gravel. One can be led a merry dance along either kind of path, if that takes one’s fancy, and if it does one might find the dance leader is a hatter, and a glib one at that. Or so I am told.