"You mean my country is not so old nor important as Oz and this two-penny island of your fat Master?" shouted Tandy angrily. "Of course not. Why, it's not even been discovered, and whoever has been there?" demanded Roger disdainfully. "Take you, as its King, acting in this small up-country fashion--what CAN a fellow think? Here--" Shoving the book toward the disagreeable young monarch, the Read Bird urged him to look for himself. With a puzzled frown Tandy reread the passage Roger had just quoted. "Well, even though your Master is a King, you're not a King and neither is Samuel Salt," said Tandy, looking at Roger with some of his former arrogance. "Oh, isn't he? Well, just lay to this, young fellow," Roger shook his claw under Tandy's upturned nose. "Samuel Salt is Captain of this ship, a Knight and the Royal Discoverer of Oz, which makes him seventy times as important as you, King Pins. He not only is boss of the _Crescent Moon_, but he rules the sea, discovering countries for other Kings to govern, and if it were not for Samuel Salt and people like him, there wouldn't be any Kingdoms nor people like you to run them. See? As for me, I'm a Royal Read Bird and wouldn't be a King for a minute. I can live my own life and go and come as I please." "Then while I'm on this ship I'm not a King at all," said Tandy wonderingly. "Then what am I? What am I supposed to do?" The little boy looked puzzled and positively frightened. "Why, you're supposed to act like a person, that is, if possible," sniffed Roger, reaching over for his book and looking at Tandy sideways down his bill. "What are you besides a King? What can you do that is useful or interesting?" "Do, DO?" Tandy's voice rose shrilly. "Why--er--why, I can draw pictures and ride an elephant." "Good!" Roger put up his claw to hide the grin that, in spite of his best efforts, began to spread round his bill. "Well, there isn't much call for drawing or elephant riding on a ship, but you can draw water to swab the decks and I'll teach you to ride the yards and follow the crosstrees to the main topgallant mast in the blowingest blow that ever blowed. And depend upon it, young one, you'll have more fun as a person than you ever had as a King. There's no place for having fun like a ship!" "Fun!" said Tandy flatly and inquiringly. "What's that?" "Tar and tobaccy jack! What are you tellin' me?" Roger almost toppled off the sea chest. "Do you mean to sit there like a dumb image and tell me you've never had any fun? Never felt so bursting full of ginger and happiness you could sing or do a sailor's horn pipe?" "It is not seemly--" began the boy in a staid voice. "It is--" "Seemly! Great goosefeathers, are you alive or aren't you?" gasped Roger. "What in paint did you do in that cussed country of yours before you got carried off and penned up like a pig in the jungle?"