The Prime Preserve seemed very much alarmed at the Queen's action and quickly wrote on his pad, "Shut your lid." Bob considered this dreadfully disrespectful, and Snorer began to chuckle with enjoyment. Preserva quite meekly obeyed, but her eyes, behind the thick glass of the jar, grew larger and larger, and finally, snatching the pad from the Prime Preserve, she dashed off in great excitement these words, "A tomato can would be about right for him!" Holding up the pad she pointed joyfully at Notta. "Serves you right for coming as a fish," chortled the Cowardly Lion. "So we'll have to take you back in a can. Well, well!" Then he craned his neck to see what else the Queen had written. A rapid conversation was going on between Preserva and their guide. One would write a message and pass it to the other. The other would snatch the page and dash off an answer, and so quickly was it done, the four in the bus had all they could do to keep up with the conversation. "Pickle the boy, Can the fish, Mince the lion And pot the fowl." commanded the Queen. "Now that's what I'd call taking pot luck," chirped Nick, balancing himself on the edge of the bus. But the Prime Preserve replied, "Why not preserve them whole for the royal museum?" While the Queen was considering this suggestion, Notta began feeling in the pockets under his disguise for a paper and pencil, so that he could get into the conversation, but without result. "No use being polite! Let's joke and run," puffed the clown, after an unsuccessful search. Leaning over the edge of the bus, he tapped the Queen sharply on the jar. Preserva dropped her pad and pencil and almost rolled from the throne. Inside the jar, they could see her jellied figure bubbling with fright and indignation. The Prime Preserve also trembled in his jar, then leaning down to read the last command of her Majesty, he ran off as fast as his crooked green legs would carry him. "Fetch the Imperial Squawmos," read the Cowardly Lion, with an amused twinkle in his yellow eyes as Notta tore off the page. "If we stay here it is plain we shall be pickled to death," scrawled the clown, "so we bid you a fond but final farewell." The Queen leaned forward, the better to read Notta's message and, while Nick, Bob and the Cowardly Lion fairly rocked with merriment at her discomfited expression, she suddenly unscrewed her lid.