"Well, somebody in this castle is King," insisted Tora positively.
"But how shall we know?" gasped Dorothy, while the others looked equally puzzled.
"Find the man who fits the King's robe," cried Tora, waving his tape measure. "Try him," he finished, indicating Sir Hokus of Pokes.
"How did you ever think of that?" asked the Wizard admiringly. "Find the man who fits the robe! Why it's as simple as arithmetic. But how did you ever think of it?"
"Well, being a tailor, it occurred to me at once," answered Tora modestly. "The robe fits the dummy perfectly, so I thought at first he must be the King, but when the magic failed to work I concluded that he wasn't."
Mombi sniffed scornfully as the Knight stepped forward but Dorothy and Ozma, remembering Sir Hokus's strange history, felt that he might easily be the lost King of Oz.
Again all but seven left the throne room, and the tailor placed the King's robes carefully about the Knight's shoulders. Then The Wizard, taking two more crackers, gravely repeated the magic formula.
Ozma kept her eyes fixed intently on Sir Hokus. She rather hoped he would turn out to be her father, for she was very fond of the blustery Knight. But nothing at all happened after the Wizard's incantation and Sir Hokus stepped down from the throne with real relief.
"Odds buckles and bonnets, my dear, I would like to be your father but not your King," sighed the Knight. "I prefer fighting to governing any day."
The Wizard cast his eye about for another candidate of proper size and shape to fit the robe, but no one in the room seemed to qualify.