“I’ve read all about you in Peer Haps’ history books,” confided Percy triumphantly. “Shall I address you as Princess?” As he asked this question the troubled expression returned to his eyes. “You haven’t seen a Princess anywhere around here have you?” he added anxiously. Dorothy shook her head and Toto began sniffing under all the bushes as if he expected to find a Princess in any one of them. “A little Princess, Passing fair, With rosy cheeks And yellow—yellow—” “Hair,” put in Dorothy quickly. “Who is she? Who are you and how did she get lost? Let’s sit down and then you can tell me all about it.” “He’s exactly like a puzzle,” thought Dorothy, with an amused little sniff. So Percy Vere sat down beside her under a spreading jelly tree and as quickly as he could he told of the strange happenings in Perhaps City, of the prophecy about the monster, of the strange conduct of old Abrog, the Prophet, and finally of the disappearance of both the Princess and the Prophet. Percy himself had fallen down the steep craggy sides of Maybe Mountain, arriving in a scratched and bruised heap at the bottom. All morning he had been wandering through the fields and lanes of the Winkle land and Dorothy was the first person he had encountered. “Well, I think you were just splendid,” breathed the little girl, as the Forgetful Poet finished his story. Percy had tried to gloss over the young men’s refusal to go in search of the Princess, but Dorothy had guessed quite correctly what had happened. “I’ll bet that old prophet carried her off himself,” she declared positively. “I think so two, I think so three, I think so four, Where can they—?” Percy mopped his brow and looked appealingly at the little girl. “Be,” supplied Dorothy obligingly. “I’m sure I don’t know, but we can soon find out. You just come to the Emerald City with me and we’ll look in Ozma’s magic picture.” “Why you are wise As you are pretty; Let’s hasten to The Emerald City!” Smiling all over because he had actually finished his own verse, the Forgetful Poet helped Dorothy to her feet and both started gaily down the lane, Dorothy telling the poet all about the interesting folk in the capitol and Percy Vere telling Dorothy all about the City of Gold on Maybe Mountain. Dorothy’s idea of looking in Ozma’s picture, like all of her other ideas, was a mighty good one, for this picture has a magical power enabling a person to see whomever he wishes, so that one look would disclose the whereabouts of the lost Princess of Perhaps City. But at every step, they were putting a longer distance between themselves and that look. For at every step, thanks to that little baconfly, they were going farther and farther away from the Emerald City of Oz.