r make
mistakes?"

"Never!" declared the Wizard, boldly.

"Oh, Oz!" said Dorothy; "you made a lot of mistakes when you were in
the marvelous Land of Oz."

"Nonsense!" said the little man, turning red--although just then a ray
of violet sunlight was on his round face.

"Come with me," said the Prince to him. "I wish to meet our Sorcerer."

The Wizard did not like this invitation, but he could not refuse to
accept it. So he followed the Prince into the great domed hall, and
Dorothy and Zeb came after them, while the throng of people trooped in
also.

There sat the thorny Sorcerer in his chair of state, and when the
Wizard saw him he began to laugh, uttering comical little chuckles.

"What an absurd creature!" he exclaimed.

"He may look absurd," said the Prince, in his quiet voice; "but he is
an excellent Sorcerer. The only fault I find with him is that he is so
often wrong."

"I am never wrong," answered the Sorcerer.

"Only a short time ago you told me there would be no more Rain of
Stones or of People," said the Prince.

"Well, what then?"

"Here is another person descended from the air to prove you were wrong."

"One person cannot be called 'people,'" said the Sorcerer. "If two
should come out of the sky you might with justice say I was wrong; but
unless more than this one appears I will hold that I was right."

"Very clever," said the Wizard, nodding his head as if pleased. "I am
delighted to find humbugs inside the earth, just the same as on top of
it. Were you ever with a circus, brother?"

"No," said the Sorcerer.

"You ought to join one," declared the little man seriously. "I belong
to Bailum & Barney's Great Consolidated Shows--three rings in one tent
and a menagerie on the side. It's a fine aggregation, I assure you."

"What do you do?" asked the Sorcerer.

"I go up in a balloon, usually, to draw the crowds to the circus. But
I've just had the bad luck to come out of the sky, skip the solid
earth, and land lower down than I intended. But never mind. It isn't
everybody who gets a chance to see your Land of the Gabazoos."

"Mangaboos," said the Sorcerer, correcting him. "If you are a Wizard
you ought to be able to call people by their right names."

"Oh, I'm a Wizard; you may be sure of that. Just as good a Wizard as
you are a Sorcerer."

"That remains to be seen," said the other.

"If you are able to prove that you are better," said the Prince to the
little man, "I will