"Why there's a pink castle!" cried Carter, with an excited wave. "Maybe we can sell the King of this country some cabbages and maybe he can tell us the way back to the Emerald City."
"Perhaps we'd better try some of the cottages first," suggested Betsy uneasily. In her many adventures she had discovered that kings were not always safe nor agreeable persons to deal with.
"No! No!" insisted Carter, "Kings make the best customers, Betsy. Compliment and flatter 'em and sell 'em the whole cart load, that's my way. Jump in and I'll run you right up to the castle."
Lifting her gaily into the cart, he started briskly down the pink lane calling, "Cabbages! fresh cabbages!" at the top of his vegetable voice. The lane led straight into a bright pink city and Betsy soon grew so interested in its tall turbaned citizens and queer cottages and shops that she forgot to worry about the King. She remembered afterward the scared glances of some of the townsmen, as they went rattling by, but at the time neither she nor Carter noticed anything amiss and the Vegetable Man never stopped till he reached the pink palace itself. As Carter paused under a balcony and began lustily calling his wares, a window just below was flung up violently and a turbaned head wagged warningly over the sill.
"Go away! Go away!" quavered an old man, in a frightened voice. "The Pasha is in a terrible temper. Go away! Go away, rash mortals, I beg of you!"
But the Vegetable Man only laughed. "Wait till he's seen my cabbages," called Carter, holding one up proudly. "Wait—" And they did not have long to wait, let me tell you, for at that precise moment the Pasha of Rash rushed out upon the balcony—the Pasha, himself, and Ippty, Chief Scribe of the Realm, for Betsy and the Vegetable Man had, as you have probably guessed already, run straight into that peppery country.
"Good morning!" cried Carter, pleasantly, in no wise alarmed by the fearful frown of the Rash Ruler. "Permit me to observe that your Highness is beautiful as a banana and fragrant as an onion. And I am here to serve you. Let me serve your Majesty with a fresh young cauliflower, a bunch of beets or this handsome cabbage!" Carter held up the cabbage coaxingly.
"A cabbage! A cabbage!" choked Irashi, turning perfectly pink with passion. "How dare you offer me a cabbage?" So angry that further speech was impossible, he turned furiously to Ippty, waving his arms and sputtering like a motor cycle.
"Begone, pernicious peddlers," ordered the Chief Scribe, pointing his fountain pen finger sternly at the two travellers. "Begone at once from Rash."
Three drops of ink fell upon Betsy's upturned nose and, thoroughly alarmed, the little girl sprang out of the cart and tried to pull Carter away.