The Essential Works of L. Frank Baum. L. Frank Baum

brains are you fit-ted with?”

      “I don’t know,” admitted the Scarecrow. “They were given to me by the great Wizard of Oz, and I didn’t get a chance to examine them before he put them in. But they work splendidly and my conscience is very active. Have you a conscience?”

      “No,” said Tiktok.

      “And no heart, I suppose?” added the Tin Woodman, who had been listening with interest to this conversation.

      “No,” said Tiktok.

      “Then,” continued the Tin Woodman, “I regret to say that you are greatly inferior to my friend the Scarecrow, and to myself. For we are both alive, and he has brains which do not need to be wound up, while I have an excellent heart that is continually beating in my bosom.”

      “I congratu-late you,” replied Tiktok. “I can-not help be-ing your in-fer-i-or for I am a mere machine. When I am wound up I do my du-ty by go-ing just as my ma-chin-er-y is made to go. You have no i-de-a how full of ma-chin-er-y I am.”

      “I can guess,” said the Scarecrow, looking at the machine man curiously. “Some day I’d like to take you apart and see just how you are made.”

      “Do not do that, I beg of you,” said Tiktok; “for you could not put me to-geth-er a-gain, and my use-ful-ness would be destroyed.”

      “Oh! are you useful?” asked the Scarecrow, surprised.

      “Ve-ry,” said Tiktok.

      “In that case,” the Scarecrow kindly promised, “I won’t fool with your interior at all. For I am a poor mechanic, and might mix you up.”

      “Thank you,” said Tiktok.

      Just then Ozma reentered the room, leading Dorothy by the hand and followed closely by the Princess Langwidere.

      8. The Hungry Tiger

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      The first thing Dorothy did was to rush into the embrace of the Scarecrow, whose painted face beamed with delight as he pressed her form to his straw-padded bosom. Then the Tin Woodman embraced her—very gently, for he knew his tin arms might hurt her if he squeezed too roughly.

      These greetings having been exchanged, Dorothy took the key to Tiktok from her pocket and wound up the machine man’s action, so that he could bow properly when introduced to the rest of the company. While doing this she told them how useful Tiktok had been to her, and both the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman shook hands with the machine once more and thanked him for protecting their friend.

      Then Dorothy asked: “Where is Billina?”

      “I don’t know,” said the Scarecrow. “Who is Billina?”

      “She’s a yellow hen who is another friend of mine,” answered the girl, anxiously. “I wonder what has become of her?”

      “She is in the chicken house, in the back yard,” said the Princess. “My drawing-room is no place for hens.”

      Without waiting to hear more Dorothy ran to get Billina, and just outside the door she came upon the Cowardly Lion, still hitched to the chariot beside the great Tiger. The Cowardly Lion had a big bow of blue ribbon fastened to the long hair between his ears, and the Tiger wore a bow of red ribbon on his tail, just in front of the bushy end.

      In an instant Dorothy was hugging the huge Lion joyfully.

      “I’m SO glad to see you again!” she cried.

      “I am also glad to see you, Dorothy,” said the Lion. “We’ve had some fine adventures together, haven’t we?”

      “Yes, indeed,” she replied. “How are you?”

      “As cowardly as ever,” the beast answered in a meek voice. “Every little thing scares me and makes my heart beat fast. But let me introduce to you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger.”

      “Oh! Are you hungry?” she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

      “Dreadfully hungry,” answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

      “Then why don’t you eat something?” she asked.

      “It’s no use,” said the Tiger sadly. “I’ve tried that, but I always get hungry again.”

      “Why, it is the same with me,” said Dorothy. “Yet I keep on eating.”

      “But you eat harmless things, so it doesn’t matter,” replied the Tiger. “For my part, I’m a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies.”

      “How dreadful!” said Dorothy.

      “Isn’t it, though?” returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. “Fat babies! Don’t they sound delicious? But I’ve never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I’ll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for.”

      “I think you are a very good tiger,” said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.

      “In that you are mistaken,” was the reply. “I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion.”

      “But the Lion is not really cowardly,” said Dorothy. “I have seen him act as bravely as can be.”

      “All a mistake, my dear,” protested the Lion gravely. “To others I may have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I was not afraid.”

      “Nor I,” said Dorothy, truthfully. “But I must go and set free Billina, and then I will see you again.”

      She ran around to the back yard of the palace and soon found the chicken house, being guided to it by a loud cackling and crowing and a distracting hubbub of sounds such as chickens make when they are excited.

      Something seemed to be wrong in the chicken house, and when Dorothy looked through the slats in the door she saw a group of hens and roosters huddled in one corner and watching what appeared to be a whirling ball of feathers. It bounded here and there about the chicken house, and at first Dorothy could not tell what it was, while the screeching of the chickens nearly deafened her.

      But suddenly the bunch of feathers stopped whirling, and then, to her amazement, the girl saw Billina crouching upon the prostrate form of a speckled rooster. For an instant they both remained motionless, and then the yellow hen shook her wings to settle the feathers and walked toward the door with a strut of proud defiance and a cluck of victory, while the speckled rooster limped away to the group of other chickens, trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went.

      “Why, Billina!” cried Dorothy, in a shocked voice; “have you been fighting?”

      “I really think I have,” retorted Billina. “Do you think I’d let that speckled villain of a rooster lord it over ME, and claim to run this chicken house, as long as I’m able to peck and scratch? Not if my name is Bill!”

      “It isn’t Bill, it’s Billina; and you’re talking slang, which is very undig’n’fied,” said Dorothy, reprovingly. “Come here, Billina, and I’ll let you out; for Ozma of Oz is here, and has set us free.”

      So the yellow hen came to the door, which Dorothy unlatched for her to pass through, and the other chickens silently