"I guess this is where we go in," remarked the Shaggy Man as he walked to the door and pushed the large metal handle.
They were in a small, brightly lighted theater containing about one hundred seats. On the stage, seated on two thrones, were a man and a woman—evidently King Ticket and Queen Curtain.
All about the King and Queen on the stage there was a bustle of the most frenzied activity. There sounded the clash and clatter of hammers, the ripping of saws and the whirring of drills and bits. Perhaps fifteen or twenty men were hard at work knocking together and erecting a bewildering array of scenery. Calmly seated about the stage on three-cornered stools, their sewing baskets at their sides, were a number of ladies sewing on costumes. Others were apparently sewing together large pieces of canvas. Still other ladies were engaged in painting artistic pictures on the canvas which was then stretched on wooden frameworks to serve as backdrops for the stage.
After Shaggy and his friends had watched this display of industry for several minutes, they advanced down the middle aisle of the theater.
The King and Queen had been doing no actual work. They merely issued directions to the others who seemed not to pay them the slightest heed, but continued with their tasks.
King Ticket looked up. "Well," he said to the Shaggy Man, "you certainly took your time getting here. It was at least three minutes ago that you announced yourselves on the Phontain."
"Do you mean you really heard us through that water fountain?" asked the Shaggy Man.
"Water hath a limpid tongue with which to lave the naked ear," said King Ticket in a voice which was meant to be impressive. "Of course we heard you through the Phontain. There are Phontains in all the rooms of the Castle—even in the theater, here—which repeat messages when we speak into them."
Twink thought this was much nicer than telephones which rudely jangling bells, although probably not as private.
"You didn't think," commented Queen Curtain, as though she had read Twink's thoughts, "that we would use ordinary means of communication, such as telephones, in the Valley of Romance, did you?"