"What?" asked Rosa in surprise.
"Nuthin'," gulped the General dolefully. "The dinner's not going, it's GONE! Our goose is hooked, tooked, crooked," finished Whiffenpuff, forgetting his grammar entirely. (Of course, we have known this all along, but it was a great shock to the King.)
"Gone!" gasped Kinda Jolly. "But where is Mombi?"
"Gone too!"
"To where?"
Whiffenpuff shook his head glumly and immediately Rosa Merry, Kinda Jolly and all the rest rushed into the kitchen to see for themselves how gone everything was. Naturally enough they found neither Mombi nor Pajuka and, on the whole, this was most fortunate, for otherwise they might have eaten the Prime Minister of Oz and swallowed with him the whole of this story.
"Our dinner began with a G and now its gone! Gone begins with a G. Our dinner is gone with a G! Shall I laugh?" asked Hah Hoh, beginning to tickle himself in the ribs.