"Is he really?" marveled Randy, gazing up at the fiery message floating like a banner over their heads. Planetty nodded absently, her interest so taken up with the wild flowers below, the blue sky above, and the wide-armed, lacy-leafed trees of this ancient forest she could not bear to turn her head for fear of missing something. On her own far-away metal planet, skies were grey and leaden, and the various levels of slate and silver strata arranged in stiff and net-like patterns. The gay colors of this bright new world simply delighted her, and Randy and Kabumpo she considered beings of rare and singular beauty. The word she used to herself when she thought of them was "netiful," which is Anuther way of saying beautiful. "A wonder that high-talking Thomas couldn't get a name straight once in a while!" complained Kabumpo out of one corner of his mouth, as Thun's sentence spiraled away in thin pink smoke. "Oh, what difference does it make?" laughed Randy. "I think 'Kabumpty' is real cute." "CUTE!" raged the Elegant Elephant with such a fierce blast Planetty promptly turned Thun to the left. "Now see what you've done," snickered Randy, giving Kabumpo's ear a mischievous tweak. "They think you want them to go left." "As a matter of fact, I do," snapped Kabumpo grumpily. "We must go east through Ix and then north to Ev." "Puzzling and more puzzling," murmured Planetty, looking round at the Elegant Elephant. "Where are all these curious places, Bumpo dear? I thought all the time we were in Noz. Did you not tell us you were the Big Bumpo of Noz?" Randy peered rather anxiously over Kabumpo's ear to see how he was taking this second nickname, but he need not have worried. The "dear Bumpo," spoken in the metal maid's ringing tones, fell like a charm on Kabumpo's ruffled feelings. And, fairly oozing complacency and importance, he began to explain his own and Randy's real names and countries, hoping Planetty would straighten them out in her own head, if not in Thun's. "You are right," he started off sonorously. "Randy and I both live in the Land of Oz, a great oblong country entirely surrounded by a desert of burning sand. But in Oz there are many, many Kingdoms: first of all, the four large realms, the Gilliken Country of the North, the Quadling Country of the South, the Empire of the Winkies in the East, and the Land of the Munchkins in the West. Each of these Kingdoms has its own sovereign; but all are under the supreme rule of Ozma, a fairy Princess as lovely as your own small self, and Ozma lives in an Emerald City in the exact center of Oz."