"Come with me," said Ippty, mysteriously. "Come with me, famous and famished member of the feline family, and you will never know hunger more!"
"Who are you?" rumbled the Hungry Tiger, sitting up and beginning to pant a little from astonishment. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"I am Ippty, Chief Scribe of Irasha the Rough, and I am here to offer you an important position at the Court of Rash. Come to Rash," begged Ippty, glancing uneasily over his shoulder, for he was not anxious to meet any of the Oz celebrities. "Come, before we are discovered!"
"Rash!" coughed the Hungry Tiger impatiently. "Why should I go to that measly little Kingdom when I am perfectly happy and contented here?"
"Because!" Bending over and splattering the Hungry Tiger with hot candle grease from his thumb, Ippty began whispering earnestly in his ear. At first, the Hungry Tiger's tail lashed and twirled with fury, but as Ippty continued, he grew calmer, and a queer longing crept into his great yellow eyes.
"Stand back fellow," he mumbled crossly, "you will singe off my whiskers, and kindly remove your pencil from my eye."
"But you will come?" Straightening up, Ippty put his bristly hand behind him and regarded the Hungry Tiger expectantly. "Not less than one prisoner a day, sometimes as many as ten," he repeated persuasively.
"Humph!" grunted the tiger, half closing his eyes. Already Ippty's wicked plan was beginning to tempt him. Surely eating criminals would not be wrong, or at least, not so very wrong.
"And these prisoners are dangerous fellows, I suppose?" he asked casually, trying to appear careless and unconcerned about the whole queer business.