When I
walk out I can't hop and run; I must strut on my rear legs and wear an
ermine robe! And the soldiers salute me and the band plays and the
other rabbits laugh and clap their paws and cry out: 'Hail to the
King!' Now let me ask you, as a friend and a young lady of good
judgment: isn't all this pomp and foolishness enough to make a decent
rabbit miserable?"

"Once," said Dorothy, reflectively, "men were wild and unclothed and
lived in caves and hunted for food as wild beasts do. But they got
civ'lized, in time, and now they'd hate to go back to the old days."

"That is an entirely different case," replied the King. "None of you
Humans were civilized in one lifetime. It came to you by degrees. But
I have known the forest and the free life, and that is why I resent
being civilized all at once, against my will, and being made a King
with a crown and an ermine robe. Pah!"

"If you don't like it, why don't you resign?" she asked.

"Impossible!" wailed the Rabbit, wiping his eyes again with his
handkerchief. "There's a beastly law in this town that forbids it.
When one is elected a King, there's no getting out of it."

"Who made the laws?" inquired Dorothy.

"The same Sorceress who made the town--Glinda the Good. She built the
wall, and fixed up the City, and gave us several valuable enchantments,
and made the laws. Then she invited all the pink-eyed white rabbits of
the forest to come here, after which she left us to our fate."

"What made you 'cept the invitation, and come here?" asked the child.

"I didn't know how dreadful city life was, and I'd no idea I would be
elected King," said he, sobbing bitterly. "And--and--now I'm It--with
a capital I--and can't escape!"

"I know Glinda," remarked Dorothy, eating for dessert a dish of
charlotte russe, "and when I see her again, I'll ask her to put another
King in your place."

"Will you? Will you, indeed?" asked the King, joyfully.

"I will if you want me to," she replied.

"Hurroo--huray!" shouted the King; and then he jumped up from the table
and danced wildly about the room, waving his napkin like a flag and
laughing with glee.

After a time he managed to control his delight and returned to the
table.

"When are you likely to see Glinda?" he inquired.

"Oh, p'raps in a few days," said Dorothy.

"And you won't forget to ask her?"

"Of course not."

"Princess," said the Rabbit King, earnestly, "you have relieved me of a
great unhappiness