"To strangers, yes; but only because they are so friendly. For, if they shake hands with you, they are likely to break your arms or crush your fingers to a jelly."
"Why?" asked Button-Bright.
"Because we are the strongest people in all the world."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed the boy, "that's bragging. You prob'ly don't know how strong other people are. Why, once I knew a man in Philadelphi' who could bend iron bars with just his hands!"
"But—mercy me!—it's no trick to bend iron bars," said His Majesty. "Tell me, could this man crush a block of stone with his bare hands?"
"No one could do that," declared the boy.
"If I had a block of stone I'd show you," said the Czarover, looking around the room. "Ah, here is my throne. The back is too high, anyhow, so I'll just break off a piece of that."
He rose to his feet and tottered in an uncertain way around the throne. Then he took hold of the back and broke off a piece of marble over a foot thick.
"This," said he, coming back to his seat, "is very solid marble and much harder than ordinary stone. Yet I can crumble it easily with my fingers—a proof that I am very strong."
Even as he spoke he began breaking off chunks of marble and crumbling them as one would a bit of earth. The Wizard was so astonished that he took a piece in his own hands and tested it, finding it very hard indeed.