"Now, now, you must be a little patient," he told the Scarecrow, earnestly. "I'm hurrying just as fast as ever I can."
"But what do you propose to do?" demanded the Scarecrow, puckering his forehead into almost forty deep wrinkles. "Can't you whiz these Stratovanians away, or send them back where they came from?"
"Not without Ozma's magic belt," sighed the Wizard. "And you know perfectly well that the belt is back in the Emerald safe in the castle!"
"Then can't you transport the safe here?" asked the Scarecrow, playing a frantic little tune on the edge of the table.
"Just what I'm trying to do!" admitted the Wizard, turning a lever here and a wheel there. "But this triple-edged, zentomatic transporter of Glinda's does not seem to be working as it should. I'll probably be able to fix it in a little while, but meantime—I tell you what you can do. Post yourself beside that record book and the minute it announces Strut's arrival in the Emerald City, rush straight back here to me!"
Before he had finished his sentence the Scarecrow was gone, and for the next two hours the faithful Straw Man, without once lifting his eyes, bent over the great book of records, reading with tense interest and lively apprehension of the progress of the Oztober and the Airlanders toward the Capitol of Oz.
