“Let us be friends and rub noses,” said the Tiger. So Hank modestly rubbed noses with the big beast.
The Lion merely nodded and said, as he crouched before the mule:
“Any friend of a friend of our beloved Ruler is a friend of the Cowardly Lion. That seems to cover your case. If ever you need help or advice, friend Hank, call on me.”
“Why, this is as it should be,” said Ozma, highly pleased to see them so fully reconciled. Then she turned to her companions: “Come, my dears, let us resume our walk.”
As they turned away Betsy said wonderingly:
“Do all the animals in Oz talk as we do?”
“Almost all,” answered Dorothy. “There’s a Yellow Hen here, and she can talk, and so can her chickens; and there’s a Pink Kitten upstairs in my room who talks very nicely; but I’ve a little fuzzy black dog, named Toto, who has been with me in Oz a long time, and he’s never said a single word but ‘Bow-wow!’”
“Do you know why?” asked Ozma.
“Why, he’s a Kansas dog; so I s’pose he’s different from these fairy animals,” replied Dorothy.
“Hank isn’t a fairy animal, any more than Toto,” said Ozma, “yet as soon as he came under the spell of our fairyland he found he could talk. It was the same way with Billina, the Yellow Hen whom you brought here at one time. The same spell has affected Toto, I assure you; but he’s a wise little dog and while he knows everything that is said to him he prefers not to talk.”