'It seems to me,' began the Scarecrow, when all were again assembled in the throne room, 'that the girl Jinjur is quite right in claiming to be Queen. And if she is right, then I am wrong, and we have no business to be occupying her palace.
' 'But you were the King until she came,' said the Woggle-Bug, strutting up and down with his hands in his pockets; 'so it appears to me that she is the interloper instead of you.
' 'Especially as we have just conquered her and put her to flight,' added the Pumpkinhead, as he raised his hands to turn his face toward the Scarecrow. 'Have we really conquered her? ' asked the Scarecrow, quietly. 'Look out of the window, and tell me what you see.
' Tip ran to the window and looked out. 'The palace is surrounded by a double row of girl soldiers,' he announced. 'I thought so,' returned the Scarecrow. 'We are as truly their prisoners as we were before the mice frightened them from the palace.
' 'My friend is right,' said Nick Chopper, who had been polishing his breast with a bit of chamois-leather. 'Jinjur is still the Queen, and we are her prisoners. ' 'But I hope she cannot get at us,' exclaimed the Pumpkinhead, with a shiver of fear.
'She threatened to make tarts of me, you know. ' 'Don’t worry,' said the Tin Woodman. 'It cannot matter greatly. If you stay shut up here you will spoil in time, anyway. A good tart is far more admirable than a decayed intellect. ' 'Very true,' agreed the Scarecrow. 'Oh, dear!
' moaned Jack; 'what an unhappy lot is mine! Why, dear father, did you not make me out of tin—or even out of straw—so that I would keep indefinitely. ' 'Shucks! ' returned Tip, indignantly. 'You ought to