en a voice cried warningly:
"Look out!"

The travelers halted abruptly and the Wizard said: "Look out for what?"

"You almost stepped on my Diamond Palace," replied the voice, and a
duck with gorgeously colored feathers appeared before them. "Beasts
and men are terribly clumsy," continued the Duck in an irritated tone,
"and you've no business on this side of the River, anyway. What are
you doing here?"

"We've come to rescue some friends of ours who are stuck fast on the
Magic Isle in this river," explained Dorothy.

"I know 'em," said the Duck. "I've been to see 'em, and they're stuck
fast, all right. You may as well go back home, for no power can save
them."

"This is the Wonderful Wizard of Oz," said Dorothy, pointing to the
little man.

"Well, I'm the Lonesome Duck," was the reply, as the fowl strutted up
and down to show its feathers to best advantage. "I'm the great Forest
Magician, as any beast can tell you, but even I have no power to
destroy the dreadful charm of the Magic Isle."

"Are you lonesome because you're a magician?" inquired Dorothy.

"No; I'm lonesome because I have no family and no friends. But I like
to be lonesome, so please don't offer to be friendly with me. Go away,
and try not to step on my Diamond Palace."

"Where is it?" asked the girl.

"Behind this bush."

Dorothy hopped off the lion's back and ran around the bush to see the
Diamond Palace of the Lonesome Duck, although the gaudy fowl protested
in a series of low quacks. The girl found, indeed, a glistening dome
formed of clearest diamonds, neatly cemented together, with a doorway
at the side just big enough to admit the duck.

"Where did you find so many diamonds?" asked Dorothy, wonderingly.

"I know a place in the mountains where they are thick as pebbles," said
the Lonesome Duck, "and I brought them here in my bill, one by one and
put them in the river and let the water run over them until they were
brightly polished. Then I built this palace, and I'm positive it's the
only Diamond Palace in all the world."

"It's the only one I know of," said the little girl; "but if you live
in it all alone, I don't see why it's any better than a wooden palace,
or one of bricks or cobble-stones."

"You're not supposed to understand that," retorted the Lonesome Duck.
"But I might tell you, as a matter of education, that a home of any
sort should be beautiful to those who live in it, and should not be
intended to please str