“Many happy returns of your eighteenth birthday!” cried the Courtiers, jumping to their feet and waving their napkins enthusiastically.
“Thank you! Thank you!” chuckled Pompadore, bowing low. “I feel that this is but one of many more to come!” Which may sound strange, but Pumperdink being in Oz, one may have as many eighteenth birthdays as one cares to have. This was Pompa’s tenth and while the courtiers drank his health the Prince made ready to blow out the birthday candles.
“That’s right, blow ’em all out at once!” cried the King. So Pompa puffed out his cheeks and blew with all his might. But not a candle flickered. Then he tried again. Indeed, he puffed and blew until he was a regular royal purple, but nary a candle flame so much as wavered.
“Stubbornest candles I ever saw!” blustered King Pompus. Then he puffed out his cheeks and blew like a porpoise; so did Queen Pozy and the Prime Pumper; so did everybody. They blew until every dish upon the table skipped and they all sank back exhausted in their chairs, but the candles burned as merrily as ever.
Then Kabumpo took a hand—or rather a trunk. He had been watching the proceedings with his twinkling little eyes. Now he took a tremendous breath, pointed his trunk straight at the cake and blew with all his strength.
Every candle went out—but stars! As they did, the great pink cake exploded with such force that half the Courtiers were flung under the table and the rest knocked unconscious by flying fragments of icing, tumblers and plates.
“Treason!” screamed Pompus, the first to recover from the shock. “Who dared put gunpowder in the cake?” Brushing the icing from his nose, he glared around angrily. The first person to catch his eye was Hashem, the cook, who stood trembling in the doorway.
“Dip him!” shouted the King furiously. And the Chief Dipper, only too glad of an excuse to escape, seized poor Hashem. “And him!” ordered the King, as Eejabo tried to sidle out of the room. “And them!” as all the other footmen started to run. Forming his victims in a line the Chief Dipper marched them sternly from the banquet hall.
“Oyez! Oyez Everybody shall be dipped!” mumbled the Prime Pumper, feebly raising his head.