'I can't imagine,' said Ojo.
'Then we must ask the Scarecrow.'
'The Scarecrow! But surely, sir, a scarecrow can't know anything.'
'Most scarecrows don't, I admit,' answered the Shaggy Man. 'But this Scarecrow of whom I speak is very intelligent. He claims to possess the best brains in all Oz.'
'Better than mine?' asked Scraps.
'Better than mine?' echoed the Glass Cat. 'Mine are pink, and you can see 'em work.'
'Well, you can't see the Scarecrow's brains work, but they do a lot of clever thinking,' asserted the Shaggy Man. 'If anyone knows where a dark well is, it's my friend the Scarecrow.'
'Where does he live?' inquired Ojo.
'He has a splendid castle in the Winkie Country, near to the palace of his friend the Tin Woodman, and he is often to be found in the Emerald City, where he visits Dorothy at the royal palace.'
'Then we will ask him about the dark well,' said Ojo.
'But what else does this Crooked Magician want?' asked the Shaggy Man.
'A drop of oil from a live man's body.'
'Oh; but there isn't such a thing.'
'That is what I thought,' replied Ojo; 'but the Crooked Magician said it wouldn't be called for by the recipe if it couldn't be found, and therefore I must search until I find it.'
'I wish you good luck,' said the Shaggy Man, shaking his head doubtfully; 'but I imagine you'll have a hard job getting a drop of oil from a live man's body. There's blood in a body, but no oil.'
'There's cotton in mine,' said Scraps, dancing a little jig.
'I don't doubt it,' returned the Shaggy Man admiringly. 'You're a regular comforter and as sweet as patchwork can be. All you lack is dignity.'
'I hate dignity,' cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. 'Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor the other.'
'She's just crazy,' explained the Glass Cat.
The Shaggy Man laughed.
'She's delightful, in her way,' he said. 'I'm sure Dorothy will be pleased with her, and the Scarecrow will dote on her. Did you say you were traveling toward the Emerald City?'
'Yes,' replied Ojo. 'I thought that the best place to go, at first, because the six-leaved clover may be found there.'
'I'll go with you,' said the Shaggy Man, 'and show you the way.'
'Thank you,' exclaimed Ojo. 'I hope it won't put you out any.'
'No,' said the other, 'I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I've been a rover all my life, and although Ozma has given me a suite of beautiful rooms in her palace I still get the wandering fever once in a while and start out to roam the country over. I've been away from the Emerald City several weeks, this time, and now that I've met you and your friends I'm sure it will interest me to accompany you to the great city of Oz and introduce you to my friends.'
'That will be very nice,' said the boy, gratefully.
'I hope your friends are not dignified,' observed Scraps.
'Some are, and some are not,' he answered; 'but I never criticise my friends. If they are really true friends, they may be anything they like, for all of me.'
'There's some sense in that,' said Scraps, nodding her queer head in approval. 'Come on, and let's get to the Emerald City as soon as possible.' With this she ran up the path, skipping and dancing, and then turned to await them.
'It is quite a distance from here to the Emerald City,' remarked the Shaggy Man, 'so we shall not get there to-day, nor to-morrow. Therefore let us take the jaunt in an easy manner. I'm an old traveler and have found that I never gain anything by being in a hurry. 'Take it easy' is my motto. If you can't take it easy, take it as easy as you can.'
After walking some distance over the road of yellow bricks Ojo said he was hungry and would stop to eat some bread and cheese. He offered a portion of the food to the Shaggy Man, who thanked him but refused it.
'When I start out on my travels,' said he, 'I carry along enough square meals to last me several weeks. Think I'll indulge in one now, as long as we're stopping anyway.'
Saying this, he took a bottle from his pocket and shook from it a tablet about the size of one of Ojo's finger-nails.
'That,' announced the Shaggy Man, 'is a square meal, in condensed form. Invention of the great Professor Woggle-Bug, of the Royal College of Athletics. It contains soup, fish, roast meat, salad, apple-dumplings, ice cream and chocolate– drops, all boiled down to this small size, so it can be conveniently carried and swallowed when you are hungry and need a square meal.'
'I'm square,' said the Woozy. 'Give me one, please.'
So the Shaggy Man gave the Woozy a tablet from his bottle and the beast ate it in a twinkling.
'You have now had a six course dinner,' declared the Shaggy Man.
'Pshaw!' said the Woozy, ungratefully, 'I want to taste something. There's no fun in that sort of eating.'
'One should only eat to sustain life,' replied the Shaggy Man, 'and that tablet is equal to a peck of other food.'
'I don't care for it. I want something I can chew and taste,' grumbled the Woozy.
'You are quite wrong, my poor beast,' said the Shaggy Man in a tone of pity. 'Think how tired your jaws would get chewing a square meal like this, if it were not condensed to the size of a small tablet – which you can swallow in a jiffy.'
'Chewing isn't tiresome; it's fun, maintained the Woozy. 'I always chew the honey-bees when I catch them. Give me some bread and cheese, Ojo.'
'No, no! You've already eaten a big dinner!' protested the Shaggy Man.
'May be,' answered the Woozy; 'but I guess I'll fool myself by munching some bread and cheese. I may not be hungry, having eaten all those things you gave me, but I consider this eating business a matter of taste, and I like to realize what's going into me.'
Ojo gave the beast what he wanted, but the Shaggy Man shook his shaggy head reproachfully and said there was no animal so obstinate or hard to convince as a Woozy.
At this moment a patter of footsteps was heard, and looking up they saw the live phonograph standing before them. It seemed to have passed through many adventures since Ojo and his comrades last saw the machine, for the varnish of its wooden case was all marred and dented and scratched in a way that gave it an aged and disreputable appearance.
'Dear me!' exclaimed Ojo, staring hard. 'What has happened to you?'
'Nothing much,' replied the phonograph in a sad and depressed voice. 'I've had enough things thrown at me, since I left you, to stock a department store and furnish half a dozen bargain-counters.'
'Are you so broken up that you can't play?' asked Scraps.
'No; I still am able to grind out delicious music. Just now I've a record on tap that is really superb,' said the phonograph, growing more cheerful.
'That is too bad,' remarked Ojo. 'We've no objection to you as a machine, you know; but as a music- maker we hate you.'
'Then why was I ever invented?' demanded the machine, in a tone of indignant protest.
They looked at one another inquiringly, but no one could answer such a puzzling question. Finally the Shaggy Man said:
'I'd like to hear the phonograph play.'
Ojo sighed. 'We've been very happy since we met you, sir,' he said.
'I know. But a little misery, at times, makes one appreciate happiness more. Tell me, Phony, what is this record like, which you say you have on tap?'
'It's a popular song, sir. In all civilized lands the common people have gone wild over it.'
'Makes civilized folks wild folks, eh? Then it's dangerous.'
