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stood shading her eyes and keeping an anxious lookout for Kabumpo, Tora sewed them neatly in place.
"It must have been mighty queer, growing up all at once," observed the old tailor, biting off his
thread and giving the little girl an affectionate pat on the shoulder.
"It was," answered Dorothy, groaning at the recollection. "I can't imagine what happened to
me, but then everything's very queer lately."
With her frock neatly buttoned, Dorothy began to feel more like herself. She thanked Tora
sweetly and smilingly invited him to tell them something about himself.
"Yes, do," urged Snip, coming to stand beside her.
"Well," sighed the old man, sticking his needle back in his lapel and taking off his specs,
"there's not much to tell. I'm a tailor, as you can readily see. How I got to Blankenburg, I don't know, but
there I've been for so long that it gives me rheumatism to think of it. But it's all over now. When we reach
this marvelous city you two young people speak of, I shall set up a shop and live happily ever afterward."
"What? With those ears?" shouted Humpy, falling up against a tree. "Oh, I don't believe it!"
"Hush," begged Dorothy and, turning apologetically to the tailor, she whispered earnestly:
"You really mustn't mind Humpy. You see his head is stuffed with hair and it makes him kind of
ridiculous." The tailor chuckled under his breath and Snip giggled outright.
Just at this moment Kabumpo, magnificent in his pearls and velvet robes, swung ponderously
into view.
"Dorothy,"trumpeted the Elegant Elephant, stopping a good twenty feet from the little group
and elevating his trunk haughtily, "what are you doing with those shabby fellows? Don't you realize you're
a Princess. A tailor! Great Grump! Do you expect me to associate with a tailor?"
"But gaze upon his ears," cried Humpy, waving his cloak triumphantly at Tora. "They wag,
wiggle and fly off by themselves. And we're hunting a king, a witch and a goose. Hurry up, you elegant
old thing, we need you in this picture."
"No we don't, we'll go on by ourselves." Snip looked angrily at Kabumpo and, taking Tora's
arm, began to walk off.
"Oh wait!" gasped Dorothy, more embarrassed by Kabumpo's rudeness than by the dummy's
ridiculousness. "Kabumpo doesn't mean that. He's really awfully jolly when you get to know him better."
"Don't bother, my dear," Tora smiled, a little sadly. Reaching up he took off both his ears and
put them quietly into his pocket. "I never listen to unpleasant conversations," explained the old man
simply.
"Good-bye," said Snip, bowing rather stiffly to Dorothy. "If you reach the Emerald City before
we do, be sure to tell Ozma about her father."
"Now please don't go," begged Dorothy. "Wait! Wait!" In great distress she dashed over to
the Elegant Elephant and poured out the whole story of the lost King 'of Oz and of Mombi's wickedness.
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When Tora had so unexpectedly taken off his ears Kahumpo's little eyes had fairly rolled in his
head and now, as he listened to Dorothy's strange recital, they began to snap and sparkle with interest. If
there was one thing Kabumpo enjoyed, it was being mixed up in a royal adventure. Finding the lost King
of Oz would be a very creditable thing, even for an elephant so elegant as himself. It might even gain him
an important position at court, thought Kabumpo craftily. And what a choice bit of news to carry home
to Pumperdink-that Ozma was not the Queen at all, and that he, Kabumpo the Magnificent, had helped
find the real monarch and had been present at the coronation. Already his imagination leaped ahead to
this important event.
Concealing, in his pompous and provoking fashion, his real interest and excitement, Kabumpo
set Dorothy upon his back and started in a dignified and stately manner toward Tora and Snip.
"I understand you are friends of the lost King of Oz," wheezed Kabumpo grandly, as he came [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]