The Wizard Gets to Work
"Please announce us to your Mistress at once!" directed the Wizard to
the sleepy little castle-maid who presently came, in answer to his loud
knock.
"But Her Highness and Princess Ozma are not here!" stuttered the maid,
her eyes popping at sight of visitors so early in the morning. "They
left yesterday to visit Prince Tatters and Grampa in Ragbad!"
"Ha, well," the Wizard turned to the others with a little shrug. "Looks
as if I shall have to manage alone. A fortunate thing Ozma did not
start back to the Emerald City. At least _she_ will not fall into
Strut's hands. Here, HERE! Don't shut the door!" The Wizard quickly
pushed past the little serving maid. "Glinda will wish us to make
ourselves comfortable in her absence. Now then, Miss--Miss--?"
"Greta," mumbled the girl, looking bashfully at her feet.
"Oho--a Greta to greet, eh?" chuckled the Scarecrow, taking off his
hat and bowing to the ground. "Well, now, my dear Miss Greta, will you
kindly show these young ladies to suitable apartments, and tell the
cook to prepare breakfast for six."
"Make it twelve!" growled the Cowardly Lion, with a little bounce
toward the maid. "I could eat six all by myself!"
"Yes Sirs! Yes _Sirs_!" quavered Greta, running off so fast she lost
one of her red slippers.
"Never mind," laughed Dorothy. "Jellia and I know this castle as well
as our own. We'll show Azarine about and have time for a short nap
before breakfast." The hundred pretty girls who acted as Glinda's
Maids in Waiting were still asleep. In fact no one was stirring in
the castle except a few servants. Waving briskly to the girls as they
started up the marble stairway, the Wizard went striding toward the red
study where the Sorceress kept all her books on witchcraft, her magic
potions, her phials and appliances.
The exquisite palace of Glinda, over which Azarine was exclaiming at
every step, was an old story to the Cowardly Lion. Throwing himself
down on a huge bearskin, he soon was in a doze and making up the sleep
he had lost on the two, previous nights. Wantowin Battles had at once
gone off to waken an old Soldier Crony of his who drilled Glinda's Girl
Guard, and the Scarecrow, about to follow the Wizard into the study,
paused to look at the great record book.
This book, fastened with golden chains to a marble table in the
reception room of the castle, records each event as it happens, in the
Land of Oz. When Glinda goes on a journey, she usually locks the Record
book and takes the key with her. But this time, she had neglected to do
so, and sentences were popping up, row after row on the open pages. As
he bent over to peruse the latest entry, the Scarecrow's painted blue
eyes almost popped from his cotton head.
"Fierce Airlanders from the Upper Strat are descending on the Emerald
City of Oz," read the Straw Man, nearly losing his balance. "If
measures of defense are not taken at once, the capitol will fall under
the fierce attack of the invaders!"
"Wiz! YO, WIZ!" yelled the Scarecrow, taking a furious slide into the
study. "Hurry! HURRY! For the love of Oz, hurry--or Strut will blow
Ozma's castle into the Strat! The Record Book says so!" he panted,
grabbing the Wizard's arm to steady himself. The Wizard, working over
the delicate apparatus on a long table, looked up with an anxious frown.
"Now, now, you must be a little patient," he told the Scarecrow,
earnestly. "I'm hurrying just as fast as ever I can."
"But what do you propose to do?" demanded the Scarecrow, puckering
his forehead into almost forty deep wrinkles. "Can't you whiz these
Stratovanians away, or send them back where they came from?"
"Not without Ozma's magic belt," sighed the Wizard. "And you know
perfectly well that the belt is back in the Emerald safe in the castle!"
"Then can't you transport the safe here?" asked the Scarecrow, playing
a frantic little tune on the edge of the table.
"Just what I'm trying to do!" admitted the Wizard, turning a lever here
and a wheel there. "But this triple-edged, zentomatic transporter of
Glinda's does not seem to be working as it should. I'll probably be
able to fix it in a little while, but meantime--I tell you what you can
do. Post yourself beside that record book and the minute it announces
Strut's arrival in the Emerald City, rush straight back here to me!"
Before he had finished his sentence the Scarecrow was gone, and for the
next two hours the faithful Straw Man, without once lifting his eyes,
bent over the great book of records, reading with tense interest and
lively apprehension of the progress of the Oztober and the Airlanders
toward the Capitol of Oz.