“Oh, I’m sorry for that!” exclaimed the little girl.

“Mis-ter Tin-ker,” continued Tiktok, “made a lad-der so tall that he could rest the end of it a-gainst the moon, while he stood on the high-est rung and picked the lit-tle stars to set in the points of the king’s crown.  But when he got to the moon Mis-ter Tin-ker found it such a love-ly place that he de-cid-ed to live there, so he pulled up the lad-der af-ter him and we have nev-er seen him since.”

“He must have been a great loss to this country,” said Dorothy, who was by this time eating her custard pie.

“He was,” acknowledged Tiktok.  “Also he is a great loss to me.  For if I should get out of or-der I do not know of an-y one a-ble to re-pair me, be-cause I am so com-pli-cat-ed.  You have no i-de-a how full of ma-chin-er-y I am.”

“I can imagine it,” said Dorothy, readily.

“And now,” continued the machine, “I must stop talk-ing and be-gin think-ing a-gain of a way to es-cape from this rock.”  So he turned half way around, in order to think without being disturbed.

“The best thinker I ever knew,” said Dorothy to the yellow hen, “was a scarecrow.”

“Nonsense!” snapped Billina.

“It is true,” declared Dorothy.  “I met him in the Land of Oz, and he traveled with me to the city of the great Wizard of Oz, so as to get some brains, for his head was only stuffed with straw.  But it seemed to me that he thought just as well before he got his brains as he did afterward.”

“Do you expect me to believe all that rubbish about the Land of Oz?” enquired Billina, who seemed a little cross—­perhaps because bugs were scarce.

“What rubbish?” asked the child, who was now finishing her nuts and raisins.

“Why, your impossible stories about animals that can talk, and a tin woodman who is alive, and a scarecrow who can think.”

“They are all there,” said Dorothy, “for I have seen them.”

“I don’t believe it!” cried the hen, with a toss of her head.

“That’s ’cause you’re so ign’rant,” replied the girl, who was a little offended at her friend Billina’s speech.

“In the Land of Oz,” remarked Tiktok, turning toward them, “an-y-thing is pos-si-ble.  For it is a won-der-ful fair-y coun-try.”

“There, Billina! what did I say?” cried Dorothy.  And then she turned to the machine and asked in an eager tone:  “Do you know the Land of Oz, Tiktok?”

“No; but I have heard a-bout it,” said the cop-per man.  “For it is on-ly sep-a-ra-ted from this Land of Ev by a broad des-ert.”

Dorothy clapped her hands together delightedly.

“I’m glad of that!” she exclaimed.  “It makes me quite happy to be so near my old friends.  The scarecrow I told you of, Billina, is the King of the Land of Oz.”

“Par-don me.  He is not the king now,” said Tiktok.

“He was when I left there,” declared Dorothy.