"Well, I wouldn't mind living in a palace at all. I'm dressed for the part. Let's go on," said the dummy cheerfully. After a few bends backwards and a few bends forwards, he rose and started unsteadily down the road. "You can be the star in this picture," he added generously, "and I'll be your double and fall for you any time you say." "All right!" agreed Dorothy, taking him cozily by the arm. Having had great experience with stuffed persons, and having brought Humpy to life, she felt more or less responsible for him. As they walked along together, she told him a little about herself and as much about the wonderful Land of Oz as she thought a man with hair brains could understand. So many marvelous things had happened to Humpy in the movies that he evinced no surprise at Dorothy's stories. As the dummy and Dorothy hurried on, a great screaming and scolding made them stop short. A scraggy-looking woods cut off the road ahead and, advancing backward upon them, there came two crooked and curious woodsmen bearing a flag. As the flag fluttered and rippled in the wind, Dorothy tried to make out the strange words embroidered in white upon its purple background. "Eht Kcab Sdoow!" said the flag mysteriously. "Og yawa! Og yawa!" shouted the woodsmen rudely. "Teg tou! Teg tou! Teg tou!" "Is this Oz talk," gasped Humpy, falling back in dismay, "or Arabic? I was in an Arabian picture once and it sounded something like this. Tou teg, yourselves," he shouted defiantly, as the woodsmen drew nearer, "and none of your back talk either!" "Back talk!" cried Dorothy, clutching him suddenly by the sleeve. "Oh, that's just what they _are_ talking, Humpy. They're talking 'back talk.' Wait a minute!" Closing her eyes, Dorothy began writing imaginary letters in the air and, as the two woodsmen reached them, she burst out triumphantly, "It says 'The Back Woods' on that flag. Oh dear, I wished we were back and now we are!" "You think awful fast," blinked the dummy admiringly. "The mere look of that language makes me dizzy. So they're talking back talk are they? Well, what do they say? Are they going to hit us?" "They're telling us to go away," muttered Dorothy, putting her fingers in her ears, for the two leaders had been joined by a hundred more and all were screaming at the top or rather, I should say, the bottom of their voices. They kept their backs to the travellers and shouted the dreadful back talk over their shoulders. They all carried gleaming axes and, when Dorothy made an attempt to advance, they brandished them threateningly. "If I could only talk back," wailed the little girl, "I'd tell them I am a Princess. Then maybe they'd let me through." "Couldn't you write it?" suggested Humpy, looking at the angry horde with growing alarm.