"He seems dangerous," remarked the Blunderer. "Let's tie him up, before he hurts someone."
So while the Arab was coughing the pebbles out of his mouth, the Brotherhood of Failings bound his hands and feet with strong cords, so that he could not move.
"He's mine!" shouted the Arab, as soon as he could speak. "He belongs to me. I claim him for my own."
"There's no harm in that," replied the Fresh-Air Fiend. "But one of the laws of this Isle is that no person shall be injured by any one except the kinglet. And every one here must obey the laws. So, unless you promise not to carve or to eat this man of gingerbread, who is now a subject of our kinglet, we must lock you up in prison."
"I'll eat him as soon as I have the chance. I have a right to do so," cried the Arab.
"You're a bad man!" said Chick, stamping one small foot indignantly.
"I'm not," answered Ali Dubh; "I'm a good man. And I paid Jules Grogrande fifty cents for this gingerbread imitation of a man, who is mixed with my own magic Elixir. Also I paid a witch nine dollars to transport me to wherever the gingerbread man might be—which is right here—that I might take possession of my own property. So I've got him, and he's paid for, and he's mine, and I claim the right to eat him whenever I please."
"You'll do no such thing," declared Chick. "Why, John Dough is alive, and no one has a right to make him dead and then eat him—even if he is paid for!"
