"It tilted," wheezed the Royal Ox, answering the unspoken question in Handy's eyes, "just tilted and slid us down. A fortunate thing you kept that magic flower, m'lass. Ha--rumph!" Weakly and still trembling in every limb, Nox tried to rise, but his legs gave way beneath him and for a good fifteen minutes he and the Goat Girl rested on the flower petals saying never a word. The tapping of footsteps in the corridor brought Handy quickly to her feet and as Nox managed to heave himself upright, the blue petals vanished, leaving only a tiny flower on the floor. Handy had just time to stuff it into her pocket when an invisible door in the side of the pit opened and twelve depressed workmen in silver cloth caps and overalls stepped inside. They carried brooms, mops and dust pans and stood staring in dismay at the seven-armed Goat Girl and angry-looking Ox. "We--we were sent to brush up!" stuttered the first workman, touching his cap uneasily. "But--there--seems--" "To be nothing to brush!" finished Handy sarcastically. "Sorry to disappoint you. Now get OUT!" ordered the Goat Girl furiously, and seizing buckets, brooms and mops from their nerveless fingers, Handy pummeled them left and right with her seven hands. "Get out and don't come back till Christmas," she panted, as the workmen, tumbling over one another, clawed open the door and banged it to behind them. The knob was on the other side of the pit and not even the edges of the door were now visible. "What a place!" groaned Handy Mandy, leaning dejectedly against the side of their prison. "What a King! And he looked so nice!" grieved the Goat Girl, sliding down to a sitting position and holding her head in all of her hands. "Never mind," said the Ox, settling on the floor beside her. "He hasn't gotten the best of us yet. It was pretty clever of you to remember that flower, but what I can't understand, is why you did not tell him at once that we _did_ have this silver hammer he is so anxious to possess? Then we could have traded the hammer for the release of Kerry." "I don't trust him," answered the Goat Girl somberly. "Why I wouldn't trust that Wizard as far as a goat can butt. Didn't you hear him say the hammer was the second most important magic in Oz? Didn't you hear him say he was stealing and planning to steal the best magic from all the four Kingdoms to make himself supreme ruler of Oz? Well, now that Five has brought him this jug-a-rug or whatever it is and Ozma's own magic picture he's probably well on the way to realizing his ambitions. But he's not going to get our silver hammer. I found it, and I'm going to keep it, for it's far safer with me than with him. Do you suppose we're going to help an old Bozzywog like that? What good would it do to put Kerry back on his throne if Wutz is to be Ruler of Oz? He'd probably pot all the Kings and keep everything for himself."