"Perfectly happy," sighed the Cowardly Lion, "for though I fight when danger threatens, I suffer terribly from a desire to run away." "Then if you had no desire to run away you would be perfectly happy?" asked Crunch, with a stamp that threw the Cowardly Lion off his feet. "Why, I can easily fix that!" "Do you mean to say you could give me courage?" roared the Cowardly Lion, stopping perfectly still in his tracks. "I know a trick to fix you so that you will never again be afraid," answered the Stone Man, rolling his eyes from side to side. "That is one thing I can do." "Who taught you magic?" rumbled the Cowardly Lion suspiciously. "No one," grated Crunch, "but this hard little secret was in the brains Wam wished into my block head. Shall I change you now?" The Cowardly Lion sat down and scratched his ear with his hind leg. He had lived long enough in a magic country to believe anything possible, but somehow this huge, craggy giant filled him with misgivings. "I'd like to think about this a little longer, if you don't mind," he answered cautiously. "Tell me more about it, can't you?" Crunch shook his head solemnly. "If I told you it wouldn't work. Better let me change you, old fellow." "No," wheezed the Cowardly Lion uneasily, "I think I'll wait a bit, I tell you," he added, brightening up, "let's not try it until this little Mudge affair is over. It isn't quite right to think of ourselves when my good friend Notta is in danger. Help me first and change me afterward." "All right," agreed the Stone Man, starting stolidly forward, but several times the Cowardly Lion, glancing up unexpectedly, caught him moving his stiff lips and looking at him with such a stony glare that it sent a shiver of terror down his spine. "Now, see here," roared the lion, planting himself determinedly in Crunch's path. "You must promise me not to try that trick till I'm ready. I've been frightened all my life and I don't wish to be frightened into a courageous lion without knowing it." "Oh, all right," grumbled the Stone Man again, "but I don't see any sense in all this delay. What if your friends do turn blue? It won't hurt them, and why should you put yourself in the clutches of this wicked old Mudger?" "That is my affair," roared the Cowardly Lion, shocked at Crunch's unfeeling words. "I suppose a person entirely composed of stone cannot help being hard and unsympathetic," he reflected to himself. Aloud he called, "Come along, let's hurry," and hurry they did as fast as their legs would carry them. A Munchkin farmer, whose cottage they passed just at dusk, gave the Cowardly Lion a hearty dinner, but he shook his head doubtfully at Crunch, who had propped himself up against a barn while the lion ate.