the Nome King.

"Never mind," said the jolly monarch. "If he doesn't care to enter the
palace and make his guesses I'll throw him into one of my fiery
furnaces."

"I'll go!--of course I'm going," yelled the general, as quick as scat.
"Where is the entrance--where is it? Let me go at once!"

So the Nome King escorted him into the palace, and again returned to
await the result. What the general did, no one can tell; but it was
not long before the King called for the next victim, and a colonel was
forced to try his fortune.

Thus, one after another, all of the twenty-six officers filed into the
palace and made their guesses--and became ornaments.

Meantime the King ordered refreshments to be served to those waiting,
and at his command a rudely shaped Nome entered, bearing a tray. This
Nome was not unlike the others that Dorothy had seen, but he wore a
heavy gold chain around his neck to show that he was the Chief Steward
of the Nome King, and he assumed an air of much importance, and even
told his majesty not to eat too much cake late at night, or he would be
ill.

Dorothy, however, was hungry, and she was not afraid of being ill; so
she ate several cakes and found them good, and also she drank a cup of
excellent coffee made of a richly flavored clay, browned in the
furnaces and then ground fine, and found it most refreshing and not at
all muddy.

Of all the party which had started upon this adventure, the little
Kansas girl was now left alone with the Scarecrow, Tiktok, and the
private for counsellors and companions. Of course the Cowardly Lion
and the Hungry Tiger were still there, but they, having also eaten some
of the cakes, had gone to sleep at one side of the cave, while upon the
other side stood the Sawhorse, motionless and silent, as became a mere
thing of wood. Billina had quietly walked around and picked up the
crumbs of cake which had been scattered, and now, as it was long after
bed-time, she tried to find some dark place in which to go to sleep.

Presently the hen espied a hollow underneath the King's rocky throne,
and crept into it unnoticed. She could still hear the chattering of
those around her, but it was almost dark underneath the throne, so that
soon she had fallen fast asleep.

"Next!" called the King, and the private, whose turn it was to enter
the fatal palace, shook hands with Dorothy and the Scarecrow and bade
them a sorrowful good-bye, and passed through the rocky portal.

The