"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 halfway 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 travelled 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?" [Illustration: MISTER TINKER VISITS THE MOON] "No; but I have heard a-bout it," said the copper 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. "I know," said Tiktok, "but there was a rev-o-lu-tion in the Land of Oz, and the Scare-crow was de-posed by a sol-dier wo-man named Gen-er-al Jin-jur. And then Jin-jur was de-posed by a lit-tle girl named Oz-ma, who was the right-ful heir to the throne and now rules the land un-der the ti-tle of Oz-ma of Oz." "That is news to me," said Dorothy, thoughtfully. "But I s'pose lots of things have happened since I left the Land of Oz. I wonder what has become of the Scarecrow, and of the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion. And I wonder who this girl Ozma is, for I never heard of her before." But Tiktok did not reply to this. He had turned around again to resume his thinking. Dorothy packed the rest of the food back into the pail, so as not to be wasteful of good things, and the yellow hen forgot her dignity far enough to pick up all of the scattered crumbs, which she ate rather greedily, although she had so lately pretended to despise the things that Dorothy preferred as food. By this time Tiktok approached them with his stiff bow.