"Yours?" gasped Betsy, "Why Atmos, have you any bones?" "One," admitted the airman, feeling his side experimentally. "It's a floating rib, and I never know just where it will be. Every airman has a floating rib," confided Atmos blandly. "It helps them to float." "Well, I think you are one of the most interesting persons I have ever met," cried Reddy, jumping to his feet. "And Carter's the other. Oh I do wish you would all stay in Rash. Won't you please stay? Betsy and Ozma can take turns being Queen, Carter can be royal gardener and the Hungry Tiger and Atmos can be anything they want." "Thanks," murmured the airman, "but what about my lecture? Besides," he looked bashfully from one to the other, "I'm engaged to an Heiress and must return to the sky. But someday, when you have a few years to spare, I hope you'll all visit me and we'll go on a regular sky-lark." "Oh, I'd love to," cried Betsy Bobbin. "You talk as if you were leaving us," objected the Hungry Tiger, raising himself with an effort. He had eaten a tremendous luncheon and could scarcely keep his eyes open. "I am," declared the airman solemnly, pushing back his chair. And before the others half realized what he was about, the huge fellow had seized Ippty and Irashi and vanished through the doorway. CHAPTER 20 Safe in the Emerald City "Wait! Wait!" begged Ozma, jumping up and hurrying after him. "Atmos Fere, Atmos dear, don't you remember you promised to carry us across the desert and back to Oz?" By this time they had all run out into the garden, but Atmos did not even seem to hear their pleas. With Ippty and Irashi under one arm, he was feverishly kicking off his iron boots. "These villains," puffed Atmos, holding up his unhappy victims, "are as Carter said, of no use on the earth at all, but they will be very useful to me in the sky. Not as good specimens as I could have wished for, but I will take them back with me, to prove that there are really people at the bottom of the air. After the lecture, I shall drop them on some lonely island where they can do no further mischief," declared Atmos calmly. "Hurrah!" roared the Hungry Tiger, overjoyed that his secret would now be kept safely. "After the lecture," gasped Ozma faintly, "But that will be years and years by skytime?" "Years and years," acknowledged Atmos, with a grin, and freeing himself from one boot soared a hundred feet into the air. "Look out below!" he called warningly, "Here comes the other one." They had just time to dodge aside when the other iron boot came crashing to earth. "Good-bye!" shouted the airman in a faraway voice, "Good-bye, little Princess, I'll see you again, some time!" "Good-bye!" called Ozma, sadly. Standing on tiptoe, the whole company strained their eyes to catch a last glimpse of their strange fellow adventurer. But Atmos and the two wicked Rashers had already disappeared above the clouds.