"Hank hankers for a hanky To blow his funny nose, Hank hankers for a hanky, I hanker for a rose!" "I do not," brayed Hank, Betsy Bobbins' little mule, flapping his ears sulkily. "You don't know what you are singing about, Scraps. Go away and stop jeering me. How could I use a hanky, you silly girl?" "Hank, you're a crank!" shouted Scraps, and capered on down the path, stopping to chin herself on a tulip tree and dropping in a wobbly heap beside the little table where Ozma, Betsy Bobbin and Trot were having breakfast. "You shouldn't tease Hank like that," said Ozma, looking reproachfully at Scraps over her gold breakfast cup. "I'll tease, I'll tease, whom I please, I'll cross my eyes and cross my knees!" chortled Scraps, and she looked so comical doing both of these crossings at once that the little girls simply burst into laughter, while Hank, with a snort of disgust, galloped off at full speed. "You're awful," sighed Betsy Bobbin, nearly choking on her biscuit, and Betsy was pretty nearly right, for this ridiculous maiden who lived luxuriously in Ozma's palace was made entirely of patchwork. She had been cut from an old quilt, stuffed and sewn together by a wizard's wife who intended her for a servant. But when the wizard mixed up her brains, a lot of fun and cleverness had got in, so that Scraps had refused to be a servant and had run off to the Emerald City. She was so comical and entertaining that Ozma had allowed her to remain at the capital, and Scraps is now one of the most celebrated characters in the castle. Betsy Bobbin was a little girl from the United States. She and Hank had been ship-wrecked on the shores of a strange land near Oz and, after some terrible adventures with the old Gnome King, had reached Oz itself and been taken in by the kind-hearted little Queen. Trot also had come from America and liked Oz so well she had never returned home. These two, with Princess Dorothy, are the closest friends of the fairy ruler, for Ozma herself is only a little girl fairy, and these four together have the merriest times imaginable. Living in a green stone castle studded with emeralds is fun enough, dear knows, but living in a green stone castle with forty-nine courtiers, thirty-nine footmen, thirty-seven handmen, twenty-six serving maids, ten cooks and a flock of pages is luxury indeed, especially in a magical land where adventures are liable to happen every few minutes. Why, it's the most fun yet! Perhaps Dorothy is Ozma's prime favorite, for Dorothy was the first little girl to discover Oz and has been so mixed up in its magical history that Ozma would scarcely know how to rule her interesting subjects without her help. It was of Dorothy that Ozma was thinking, as she watched Scraps turning reckless handsprings under the tulip trees.