a carefully
painted face.

"This I hung from the ceiling by a wire," said Oz. "I stood behind the
screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open."

"But how about the voice?" she inquired.

"Oh, I am a ventriloquist," said the little man. "I can throw the
sound of my voice wherever I wish, so that you thought it was coming
out of the Head. Here are the other things I used to deceive you." He
showed the Scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed
to be the lovely Lady. And the Tin Woodman saw that his terrible Beast
was nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their
sides out. As for the Ball of Fire, the false Wizard had hung that
also from the ceiling. It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil
was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely.

"Really," said the Scarecrow, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself for
being such a humbug."

"I am--I certainly am," answered the little man sorrowfully; "but it
was the only thing I could do. Sit down, please, there are plenty of
chairs; and I will tell you my story."

So they sat down and listened while he told the following tale.

"I was born in Omaha--"

"Why, that isn't very far from Kansas!" cried Dorothy.

"No, but it's farther from here," he said, shaking his head at her
sadly. "When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was
very well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird
or beast." Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his
ears and looked everywhere to see where she was. "After a time,"
continued Oz, "I tired of that, and became a balloonist."

"What is that?" asked Dorothy.

"A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of
people together and get them to pay to see the circus," he explained.

"Oh," she said, "I know."

"Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so
that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so
far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles
away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the
morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a
strange and beautiful country.

"It came down gradually, and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself
in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds,
thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think so, because
they were afrai