row in his jolly voice, "nothing
could have been more wonderful than my return to this lovely island,
but in the years I have been away from you I have changed very much,
and I find I no longer care for being Emperor. So with your kind
permission, I will keep the excellent body I now have and will
abdicate in favor of my eldest son and return with my friends to Oz.
For in Oz I really belong."

A dead silence followed the Scarecrow's speech--then perfect
pandemonium.

"No! No! You are a good Emperor! We will not let you go!" shrieked
the people. "You are our honorable little Father. The Prince shall be
Emperor after you have peacefully returned to your ancestors, but not
now. No! No! We will not have it!"

"I feared this!" quavered Happy Toko.

"It is not the Emperor, but the Scarecrow who speaks!" shrilled the
Grand Chew Chew craftily. "He knows not what he says. But after the
transformation--Ah, you shall see!"

The company calmed down at this. "Let the ceremony proceed! Way for
the Grand Gheewizard!" they cried exultantly.

"Chew Chew," wailed the Scarecrow, "you're off the track!" But it was
too late. No one would listen.

"I'll have to think of something else," muttered the Scarecrow,
sinking dejectedly back on his throne.

"Oh!" shuddered Dorothy, clutching the Scarecrow, "Here he comes!"

"Way for the Grand Gheewizard! Way for the Grand Gheewizard!"

The crowd parted. Hobbling toward the throne came the ugly little
Gheewizard of the Silver Island holding a large silver vase high
above his head, and after him--!

When Sir Hokus caught a glimpse of what came after, he leaped clean
over the Comfortable Camel.

"Uds daggers!" roared the Knight. "_At last!"_
He rushed forward violently. There was a sharp thrust of his good
sword, then an explosion like twenty giant firecrackers in one,
and the room became quite black with smoke. Before anyone
realized what had happened, Sir Hokus was back, dragging
something after him and shouting exuberantly, "A dragon! I have
slain a dragon! What happiness!"

Everyone was coughing and spluttering from the smoke, but as it
cleared Dorothy saw that it was indeed a dragon Sir Hokus had slain,
the rheumatic dragon of the old Gheewizard himself.

"Why didn't you get the wizard?" rumbled the Cowardly Lion angrily.

"Must have exploded," said the Comfortable Camel, sniffing the skin
daintily.

"Treason!" yelled the three Princes, while the Grand Gheewizard flung
himse