"Carter! Carter!" called the little girl excitedly, "Don't be scared. It's the Hungry Tiger, the Hungry Tiger of Oz!" She fairly sang out the name, in her relief and happiness. The Vegetable Man had dropped head first into the tiger's tub of water. At Betsy's cries, he made a valiant attempt to rise, but when he saw her actually embracing the tiger he was so startled and horrified that he fell back with a splash.
"Hungry Tiger!" gurgled Carter, bobbing up and down like a cork, "Hungry Tiger! Then so much the worse for us!"
CHAPTER 6
The Scarlet Prince
"Would you mind not using my drinking cup for a bath," observed the Hungry Tiger mildly, as Carter continued to gurgle and splash about in the tub. Laughing with relief, Betsy seized the Vegetable Man's hands and pulled him out of the water.
"Don't be scared," whispered Betsy comfortably. "This tiger's a friend of mine and he wouldn't hurt anybody!"
"Then what's he doing here?" asked Carter accusingly. "Is this parsnippy Pasha his friend, too?" The Hungry Tiger winced guiltily at Betsy's kind little speech, but resolved that she should never know he had willingly come to Rash.
"I'm his prisoner," he explained in a hollow voice. (And, indeed, he was terribly hollow by this time.) "I'm a prisoner like yourselves." In a husky roar, he told of his trip by hurry-cane to Irashi's Kingdom and of his imprisonment in the Rash courtyard.
"So this light fingered Ippty brought you here," mused Carter wonderingly. "But why?"